Bush says bin Laden tape aided re-election: report

Osama Bin Laden in a videotaped statement broadcast November 3, 2001. President Bush said his 2004 re-election victory over Sen. John Kerry was inadvertently aided by bin Laden, who issued a taped diatribe against him the Friday before Americans went to the polls, The Examiner newspaper reported on Tuesday. REUTERS/Al-Jazeera TV

I'm not sure where this story is going. From Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said his 2004 re-election victory over Sen. John Kerry was aided by Osama bin Laden, who issued a taped diatribe against him the Friday before Americans went to the polls, The Examiner newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Bush said there were "enormous amounts of discussion" inside his campaign about the 15-minute tape, which he called "an interesting entry by our enemy" into the presidential race.

Bush's comments in the Washington newspaper were excerpts from the new book "Strategery" by Bill Sammon, a long-time White House correspondent.

"What does it mean? Is it going to help? Is it going to hurt?" Bush told Sammon of the bin Laden tapes. "Anything that drops in at the end of a campaign that is not already decided creates all kinds of anxieties, because you're not sure of the effect.

"I thought it was going to help," Bush said. "I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn't want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush."

In an ABC News interview before leaving on a visit to India and Pakistan, Bush said he was optimistic that bin Laden would be brought to justice. Bush said he would be discussing with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf efforts to track down the al Qaeda leader.

Many experts believe bin Laden is hiding on the Pakistan side of the border with
Afghanistan.

"So long as I'm the president, we'll stay on the hunt and we'll use resources and power and influence to convince others to join us on the hunt as well," Bush told ABC. "I'm an optimistic person. I believe we will bring him to justice."

Bush thought that the bin Laden tape would help his campaign, by reminding people that Bush was the stronger president? That bin Laden made the tape because he didn't want Bush to be president? What is happening here is that we're getting into some off-the-wall conjectures here. The only person who knows why this tape is made, and how this tape was to have influenced the U.S. elections is Osama bin Laden himself. And Osama isn't talking.

It is still too early to explore the historical ramifications of this bin Laden tape influencing the 2004 elections. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is still going on. With this continued ongoing conflict, historians may never be able to interview bin Laden, or the top al Qaida operatives that were close to him in 2004 and knew how he thought. Bush's presidential papers will not be released for historical review until well after 2008--or perhaps never, considering how secretive this administration is. While I am interested in learning what Sammon finds for his book, I doubt we're going to get a full and complete story on this issue.