Remember when front and center of every wingnut screed was a requisite section claiming that Bill Clinton let Bin Laden get away? Remember the ABC Path to 9/11 fantasyland "documentary" and it's suggestion that American troops had Bin Laden in their sights, only to have Sandy Berger hang up the phone? Those accusations all turned out to have less truth than a Dick Cheney press conference.
But here's betting the same right wing accusers don't line up to talk about this one.
A documentary says French special forces had Osama bin Laden in their sights twice about three years ago but their U.S. superiors never ordered them to fire... "In 2003 and 2004 we had bin Laden in our sights. The sniper said 'I have bin Laden'," an anonymous French soldier is quoted as saying.
We already know that Bush let Bin Laden slip away at Tora Bora, and that he nixed going after al-Zarqawi in 2002, lest it dent the justification for going into Iraq.
The French military has denied these events, but it makes for interesting speculation. How would it have looked, if after everything the Bush administration had said, and all the jokes Republicans had told, Bin Laden was taken out by the French?