Alex Frangos reports from Florida on the presidential race.
John McCain says in almost every stump speech that he knows how to capture Osama bin Laden and that he’d follow the al Qaeda leader to the “Gates of Hell.”
So Washington Wire was wondering, what does McCain know that President Bush and the Pentagon don’t about how to sweep up America’s most elusive enemy.
“One thing I will not do is telegraph my punches. Osama bin Laden will be the last to know,” he said today while riding on the back of his bus between Florida events. In other words: he’s not telling. Why not share his strategy with the current occupant of the White House? “Because I have my own ideas and it would require implementation of certain policies and procedures that only as the president of the United States can be taken.”
That response, of course, echoes Richard Nixon’s campaign promise in 1968 to stop the Vietnam War. Nixon also declined to say what his plan was. America’s involvement in the Vietnam war continued until 1973.
As for the Gates of Hell themselves, McCain says he knows all about them. “I think I’ve been close,” he joked.