Anything that comes out of a Bush Administration mouthpiece has to be questioned. If Tony Snow said it's going to be cold and snowy, I'll dress in shorts and a T-Shirt. That's why the exchange between CNN's Ed Henry and Fatherland Homeland Security Department Adviser Fran Townsend didn't surprise me one bit.
CNN Transcript:
---My emphasis in bold
HENRY: But now as 2006 ends, Osama bin Laden is still at large. Heading into 2007, how confident are you that he can be brought to justice this coming year?
TOWNSEND: Well, there's no question in my mind that he'll be brought to justice. The real question is whether or not it's going to be this year. I will tell you that I feel increasingly confident, you know, it was interesting. There's a recent poll and the American people said 71 percent of them were optimistic that we can protect the country.
And I think they've got reason to be optimistic. We've made a lot of progress. They see the progress we've made. We've disrupted plots. We've made reforms in our system, in our security system. So on bin Laden, do I think we are going to get him? I absolutely know we're going to get him.
The question is will it be this year. And I will tell you I think there's increased activity both the part of the CIA, JSOC and our partners, the Pakistanis.
HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.
TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.
Success is failure and failure is success. Orwell couldn't have written it better himself.
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