Rick Klein has an incisive piece on how the Bush campaign spun the Bin Ladin tape to "insulate Bush from political damage."
The way the Bush campaign handled the Osama bin Laden videotape late last week was a textbook example of how President Bush's message machine can seize control of the news cycle -- and insulate Bush from political damage.
The strategy came together quickly, while Bush traveled with his top aides on a quick flight to Columbus, Ohio, on Friday afternoon, moments after Bush spoke from the tarmac in Toledo. While Bush was in the air, comments Senator John F. Kerry made to a Milwaukee television station earlier in the day began airing widely, and the machine whirled into action. Kerry had said nothing particularly new. He was a charge he had made at almost all his campaign events -- that Bush had passed up a chance to capture bin Laden in late 2001 at Tora Bora, by relying on ''Afghan warlords" rather than US troops to try to capture the terrorism leader.
Campaign headquarters called Air Force One to tell Bush aides about the interview. Within minutes of arriving at the campaign event in Columbus, the White House communications director, Dan Bartlett, sought out reporters to say that Kerry's comments had crossed the line. Bartlett called them a ''sign of desperation" that Kerry would seek political advantage in the sudden reappearance of bin Laden on television sets.