Facts show who made bin Laden priority

Mr. Larry King, in his May 15 Fence Post letter, states that I displayed “ignorance” by “ignoring [the] historical data” showing that Barack Obama, had he been president in 2001, not only would have failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks, but he also would have failed to ever take down bin Laden.

Yet, I am not so ignorant that I don't know that “data” means “facts,” which are the opposite of the hypothetical Mr. King is posing 10 years after the fact.

Here are just a few real-world Bush-bin Laden facts:

On Aug. 6, 2001, Bush refused to interrupt his monthlong vacation (after a mere six months in office) to deal with a specially delivered CIA brief that warned of al-Qaida strikes in the U.S. using hijacked American airplanes. It was only on Sept. 4 that Bush held his first high-level meeting on terrorism.

In December 2001, with bin Laden holed up in Tora Bora, Bush failed to heed his military commanders on the ground and did not authorize the reinforcements needed to trap him, which resulted in his walking into Pakistan unmolested.

Four months later, Bush stated that he was “truly not concerned” about bin Laden or where he was.

In 2006, Bush disbanded the CIA's Alec Station unit dedicated to hunting down bin Laden. Coincidentally, this was around the time bin Laden took up residence in his Abbottabad villa.

Unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama made capturing bin Laden a top priority, even though saying this got him labeled “naive” and “irresponsible” by the Republican echo chamber. And unlike Mr. Bush, President Obama never played dress-up in a shiny flight suit in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner.

Thorn Randall

Libertyville