Tony Snow Declares Victory over Osama bin Laden

Josh Marshall calls Tony Snow on this lie:

We never argued that he played a role 9/11; political opponents manufactured the claim to question the president’s integrity.

But the rest of this is either brazen dishonesty or unbelievable optimism:

The most astonishing argument is the claim the United States (or the Bush administration) is responsible for this terror wave. Terrorists are responsible for terror, period. The al-Qaeda of 2001 no longer exists. We’ve killed or captured two-thirds of its senior leadership. The new National Intelligence Estimate says our nation has become a tougher target. That’s because our government has adopted aggressive measures to gather intelligence, protect Americans and strike enemies before they can strike us. Al-Qaeda doesn’t have the strength it had six years ago, but it remains committed to killing Americans. It also wants to find a safe haven, as it had in Afghanistan. It sees Iraq as its best hope.

Osama bin Laden is somewhere near the Afghan/Paki border but Tony Snow says these thugs no longer exist. Yippie! We won! Oh wait – Al Qaeda is gaining strength but that decision to invade on March 19, 2003 had nothing to do with Al Qaeda’s ability to gain new recruits. Wow – I have had this wrong all along. Thanks to Tony Snow for setting me straight!