Subject: [big campaign] FLASHBACK: McCain Declared Osama Bin Laden Threats Are 'Very Helpful' To Bush's Campaign
From: "Adam Jentleson (CAPAF)" <[email-masked]>
To: "big campaign" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:31:58 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/24/flashback-mccain-terrorist/

FLASHBACK: McCain Declared Osama Bin Laden Threats Are 'Very Helpful' To
Bush's Campaign
<http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/24/flashback-mccain-terrorist/> 

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) sought to distance himself from
adviser Charlie Black, who told Fortune Magazine
<http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/20/magazines/fortune/Evolution_McCain_Whit
ford.fortune/>  that another terrorist attack on the United States would
be "a big advantage
<http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/23/mccain-adviser-another-attack-on-th
e-us-would-be-a-big-advantage-for-mccain/> " to McCain's campaign.
McCain rejected the comments, saying, "If he said that, and I do not
know the context, I strenuously disagree
<http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/23/mccain-rejects-advisers-claim-that-
another-terrorist-attack-would-be-a-big-advantage-for-his-campaign/> ."

However, McCain himself has made similar assertions in the past. In
2004, just three days before the presidential election, McCain argued
that a recently-released video-tape by Osama bin Laden would prove "very
helpful to President Bush":

	U.S. Sen. John McCain, campaigning in southwestern Connecticut
on Saturday, said Osama bin Laden's video message to Americans will
likely energize President Bush's re-election campaign.

	"I think it's very helpful to President Bush," said McCain,
R-Ariz., while stumping in Stamford for U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays. "It
focuses America's attention on the war on terrorism. I'm not sure if it
was intentional or not, but I think it does have an effect." [AP,
10/30/04]

In the 18-minute video, bin Laden declared that al Qaeda was still
motivated to attack the United States again
<http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/binladen.tape/index.html> .

More recently, McCain indicated that the terrorist attack that killed
Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/28/pakistan.topstories33>
would help him politically
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3T6DpPRPMY&feature=related> , as CNN's
Dana Bash recounted on the Situation Room yesterday: 

	BASH: I was actually with Sen. McCain the very day that Benazir
Bhutto was assassinated. ... He really did understand from that moment
that this was something that he thought could help him in the race at
that point to be the Republican nominee. In fact, at that event that
very day I asked Sen. McCain if he thought it would help his political
campaign and he said pretty much "Yes." ... So it's not a secret that
back then that Sen. McCain and his campaign thought it would help. 

To be sure - unlike Black seemed to do
<http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/24/clarke-black/>  - McCain in 2004
was not advocating a terrorist attack. Yet just like his trusted adviser
<http://www.mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0016> , McCain - who claimed
yesterday he "cannot imagine" why Black would say such a thing - has not
hesitated to claim political advantage from acts of terror.

-----
Adam Jentleson
Communications and Outreach Director
The Hyde Park Project, Center for American Progress Action Fund
202-247-8614

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