Thompson: Bin Laden wants Kerry elected [View All]

[Goldmund]

I say great. Let them keep talking like this, and let them get giddy over Osama's tape -- it seems that Americans aren't quite as stupid as they assume.

MILWAUKEE - A new videotape of Osama bin Laden was meant to help elect Sen. John Kerry president, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson says.

The former Wisconsin governor said the admitted mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks wants voters to elect someone other but President Bush. Bin Laden's message was "obvious to anybody that looks at it," Thompson said Saturday during campaign speeches in Monroe and Platteville.

"There's no question in my mind, and I think to anybody who knows how close this election is," Thompson later told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview. "Osama bin Laden would not give out a video report 72 hours before the election unless he wanted to influence it."

Thompson, one of Bush's cabinet secretaries, said Kerry would not work as hard as Bush to find bin Laden.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/special_packages/election2004/10064392.htm