Bush: Bin Laden helped me
2006-02-28 20:44
Washington - US President George W Bush said his 2004 re-election victory over John Kerry was
inadvertently 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."