Surely – surely – the American people will see this for what it is, given the earlier stories foreshadowing this event.
I wonder how Bush will scratch Musharraf’s back now?
And who remembers the interview with Bush before he was elected when he couldn’t even come up with Musharraf’s name (uh…what’s his name…the general…don’t tell me…)?
I’m sure the “thank you note” is already on its way to Islamabad.
But for a “high level operative” this guy isn’t that well known. Most American probably have only a vague memory of the African embassy bombings. I doubt the “BREAKING NEWS” banners on Fox and CNN lasted for more than a half hour.
Any bets that a person of larger infamy is captured a week or so before November 2nd? (Then again, there’s still a few hours left before the speech starts…)
Yeah, everyone knows all the Pakistani police had to do was go to the cave next to where the guy was captured, have the CSI folks do their famous 15 minute DNA test to confirm his identity, then pop over to the CNN cave to make the announcement.
John Mace: Well, at some point when people tell you in advance that “weird coincidences” are going to happen and then they do, I suppose one possibility is that it is just a weird coincidence. I don’t think this is the most likely possibility though.
OK. let’s say it’s not a coincidence. As I said in the Pit thread about this, if it’s true, it’s a definite reason to vote for Bush. Anyone who can command that an “HVT” be aprehended at a specific time like this is exactly the type of president we need in the war against terror.
The delay doesn’t seem to be the result of having to identify the suspect. From the latest AP report:
“Hayyat announced the arrest after midnight in Pakistan in an interview with Geo television, an unusually late hour considering the arrests were made Sunday and authorities had known but not revealed the man’s identity for some days.”
More rat-fucking from the dirty tricksters, I say … .
Has anyone considered the possibility that catching Bin Laden prior to the election could have a negative effect on Bush’s re-election chances? I think that many people have the simple-minded opinion that Bin Laden is the bad guy. Sure, they’ve heard of Al Queda, but Osama Bin Laden is more of a household name. So maybe once Osama is caught, people will be happy and think: “Great, we got the bad guy. He can’t hurt us any more.” And then: “Wait, I still can’t find a job. I’m a software engineer working in Walmart. Our country is in a huge deficit…let’s give Kerry a chance.” Basically, Bush did his job and we don’t need him anymore.
Do you have a link? The quote you gave really doesn’t address the issue of how long it would/should/could take to identify this guy.
But I’ll tell you what. If ObL is captured a few weeks before the election, I’ll put my tin foil hat on with the rest of you guys…
What do you think is going to happen? Kerry starts his speech, and all the networks cut to a Pakistani spokesman to get the latest details about this guy? It’s good and interesting news, but it just isn’t going to put the slightest dent into the convention coverage. Rove is better than this.
I’m not sure why this is a “coincidence.” The New Republic story was pretty solid: they found multiple indepedant sources whose stories fit each other and the facts. The Pakistanis were told to capture someone in time for the convention, and now they have. Perhaps the hope was that it could be someone bigger. But the story stood on its own whether or not the results came to pass. Now that they have, it certainly seems to be just more confirmatory evidence of the story. Not hats required.
Any President who would put partisan showmanship above our national security shouldn’t be leading our country. And there is no reason to think that Bush has any special powers that any other President wouldn’t have the same access to, if not greater access given that they might have better international political capital.
Here’s the first place I could find on Google News running the AP story.
http://www.xposed.com/headline_news/49_ds_765292.aspx
For the record, I don’t think that there is some tightly-orchestrated media push going on here. I think that the original New Republic story from early in July was probably basically correct. The administration leaned on Pakistan to produce a high-value target during the DNC. Pakistan worked extra hard and pulled it off. Probably they wanted to interrogate the guy before they released his name, so a delay of a few days is probably reasonable.
The weird thing to me is that they announced it at a press conference at midnight local time. After he’d been in custody (and ID’d) for days. Why the sudden rush to get the news out? Unless the Pakistani authorities were eager to make sure the DNC was still going on when the news broke.
I don’t expect the “War on Terror” to stop so the Democrats can throw a party. But I also don’t want to see the Repulbicans manipulating national security as an election ploy.
If the New Republic hadn’t run it’s earlier article, my response to today’s news would be “hmm, freaky coincidence”. But now it just provides additional evidence that TNR’s allegations were correct.
I also wouldn’t give Rove too much credit. As I pointed out in the pit thread, someone in the Bush administration through it was a dandy idea to blow the cover of a covert CIA operative in an effort to intimidate a critic. That was a collossally stupid move, and one that will bear quite bitter fruit if names are ever named.
That should be “thought it was a dandy idea”.
I doubt it. I think you are overestimating the the public’s interest in Kerry’s speech. Who really cares? We already know hes got the nomination. This is no big suprise. Kerry supporters will watch it and get all warm and fuzzy and Bush supporters will watch Comedy Central or Fox or whatever (its Thursday, I party and BBQ on the deck) and not care one way or the other.
Hell, are the four “major networks” even running the convention tonight?
To be fair, **Knorf ** was talking about ObL being captured (per the OP), not this guy who was captured on Sunday. Had it been ObL, there would be some competition for news time.
Please tell me you don’t seriously believe this Bushit. Are you seriously endorsing the naked partisan move of trumping political expediency over national security that we’re seeing here?
Or, to put it in simpler terms, if Bush really has this kind of clout, why didn’t he use it three years earlier, instead of dicking around and waiting until NOW for the payoff? :mad:
(Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, since Ronald Reagan dicked around with the hostages in Iran for his election, and the Republican Party will still gladly kiss his dead ass over that…)
I think he was making a funny. I laughed, anyway. → 
Of course I don’t. But it makes about as much sense as the rest of the conspiracy theory crap being spouted in this thread.
This so-called conspiracy theory made a prediction that was later borne out. This should increase one’s confidence in the reporting of the original story, assuming that one can be swayed by factual evidence.
When shall I expect to hear Kerry use this “factural evidence” in his campaign against Bush? Perhaps my threshold for belief is closer to his than to yours.
OMFG!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Bushco probably waited until the Demmie convention to spring this one on us!
John, think about this statement you made for a second. If Bush can conjure up an HVT at a moment’s notice, then perhaps you can tell me why after almost three years we’re still looking for them. If he could snap his fingers and get anyone he wanted, then why do we not have Bin Laden? And why didn’t we have him three years ago?
It might be random, it might not be, but either way your statement doesn’t bear any sort of scrutiny, and it would seem to me to be more tongue-in-cheek than anything else. At least I hope so.