Bush: Osama helped me beat Kerry

In a new book called "Strategery" (by former White House correspondent Bill Sammon), Bush is quoted as saying that his 2004 victory over Sen. John Kerry was inadvertently aided by Osama bin Laden, who issued a taped diatribe against him the Friday before election day.

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.

"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."

If the only thing "right" with Bush is that bin Laden didn't want him to be president, that doesn't sound like much of a recommendation. Would you hire somebody just because bin Laden didn't want him or her working for you?

Even with bin Laden's suspiciously fortuitous assist, Bush still needed Diebold to help inflate his numbers enough to beat Kerry. Nevertheless, Bush's confession seems to lend credibility to the conspiracy theory that Bush and bin Laden are in cahoots.

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