Well, not so much, but McCain knows how to get the support of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda!
The Washington Post reported the story this morning, along with the AP.
Jon Soltz, Chairman of Vote Vets has a great post out analyzing the implications of the al Qaeda endorsement.
Soltz reminds us of where the terrorist smear campaign against Obama started.
Back in April, the seeds of the smear campaign against Senator Obama were being planted. What now has become “palling around with terrorists” began in April, when John McCain and his campaign started dropping the talking points that Barack Obama was the choice of Hamas, as if Obama had sought that statement of support.
Soltz goes further to analyze WHY McCain would have the “endorsement” of al Qaeda.
But there’s something else at play, here. The war in Iraq, as well as saber rattling against Iran by McCain and those who surround him, like Joe Lieberman, are an excellent recruiting tool for al Qaeda. That’s not a new notion. The International Institute for Strategic Studies reported back in 2004 that the war in Iraq was pretty helpful to al Qaeda’s efforts to gain new recruits, as it sought to rebuild its strength after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
Soltz also emphasizes the more salient point of al Qaeda’s actions in this “endorsement” as well as that of Hamas’.
Of course, this “endorsement” shouldn’t itself influence voters, as Hamas’ statement on Obama shouldn’t. The American people shouldn’t base their votes on the basis of what maniacs say.
But it once again underscores the question of who would be stronger in the fight against al Qaeda, which candidate is proposing a stronger plan to go after those who attacked us on 9/11, and which is for continuing the policy that has allowed al Qaeda to gain recruits and regain strength.
Brandon Friedman, Vice Chairman of Vote Vets, has the scoop on the McCain camp’s take on these events.
This is the height of hilarity, since McCain’s own website gleefully highlights Obama’s endorsement by Hamas. The McCain campaign has taken the entertainment factor here to a new level, however, with their reaction to this new development.
Here is the McCain campaign’s press release:
ARLINGTON, VA — Today, at 11:30 a.m. EDT, McCain-Palin 2008 will hold a press conference call with former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and McCain-Palin Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Randy Scheunemann to discuss recent news stories about which candidate terrorists would like to see in the White House in 2009.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
PRESS CONFERENCE CALL
WHO: Jim Woolsey, Former CIA Director
Randy Scheunemann, Senior Foreign Policy Adviser, McCain-Palin 2008
WHAT: Press Conference Call
WHEN: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. EDT
Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent was on the conference call and says that the McCain campaign is freaking out about this news.
I just got off a conference call held by the McCain campaign to deny that Al Qaeda, contrary to reports in the AP and the Washington Post, is rooting for their man. To describe the call as panicked would be an understatement.
Jim Woolsey, the former CIA director who publicly connected Iraq to the 9/11 attacks without any evidence in 2001, and senior foreign-policy adviser Randy Scheunemann spent more time whining about the Washington Post’s standards of fairness than on the logic of why Al Qaeda might prefer Sen. John McCain. “An amazing piece of journalism, and I use journalism in quotation marks,” Scheunemann said, going on to list barely approving quotes of Sen. Barack Obama from Hamas, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, which he said he wasn’t going “to characterize.” Woolsey, for his part, peered into the mind of what he called “one individual Islamist blogger from one terrorist Islamist blog” and determined that he was “clearly trying to damage John McCain” and “not speaking from his heart.”
What was absent from the call, oddly enough, was any discussion about why Al Qaeda might want McCain to win. And there the case is simple enough. Al Qaeda prefers an indefinite U.S. occupation of Iraq and a bellicose U.S. all across the Muslim world to radicalize Muslims to its terrorist cause and drain the U.S. of its financial wealth – what Osama bin Laden calls his “bleed to bankruptcy” strategy. Hence, the reason why, as the CIA eventually concluded, Bin Laden tried to help George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004 by releasing a late-October tape. McCain pledges basic continuity with Bush on the Iraq war. As Scheunemann put it, “John McCain will spend what it takes to win.”
I think that the McCain camp SPIN machine is all washed up.
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