Bush's Bogus Analogy

In 1998, the Washington Times tipped off Osama. In 2005, the New York Times didn't.
By Daniel Benjamin
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005, at 7:06 PM ET

In his press conference on Monday, President Bush tried to shut down discussion of his executive order to intercept the communications of Americans and foreigners resident in the United States without court approval by vilifying those who leaked the story. "We're at war, and we must protect America's secrets," he said. The leak was a "shameful act" that had undermined American security.

Bush presented an analogy to show just how much damage such a leak could cause. "Let me give you an example about my concerns about letting the enemy know what may or may not be happening," he said. "In the late 1990s, our government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone. And then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak. And guess what happened? Saddam—Osama bin Laden changed his behavior. He began to change how he communicated." Never mind the confusion of Saddam and Bin Laden ("You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," as Bush said in September 2002, and evidently, he doesn't), the story is meant to turn the tables on critics. Indeed, it was so important to Bush that he brought it up twice in his comments.