Fox poll: McCain strongest against Bin Laden
Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's bin Laden counterterrorism unit, joined Fox News' Uma Pemmaraju to discuss the recent videotaped statement, by whom the White House tells the public it believes is Osama bin Laden.
Among the commentary, Scheuer says that Democratic Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama's public denials of rumors that he is Muslim is fueling the Muslim world's displeasure with the West.
This statement is used as a segue to a Fox News poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, in which 48% of poll participants said that GOP presidential candidate and Arizona Senator John McCain would be "most dedicated" to capturing bin Laden as President, compared to 14% for Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and 10% for Obama.
The entire interview, with closed caption transcript, is available below. It was broadcast on Fox News' America's Pulse on March 20, 2008.
Transcript via closed captions
:: uma: and the cia now confident they are -- that the boys on that on the tape is in fact usama bin laden. intheory threatens retaliations against europe and lashes out the pulp and that the cartoons of the prophet muhammed are a worldwide crusade against islam. the vatican blasting the mastermind, and those claims baseless and unfounded. the white house saying that the tape could also be a desperate attempt by the terrorist group to regain lost their support. our next guest knows everything pretty much there is to know for usama bin laden. he was chief of the unit at the counterterrorism center. thank you for joining us, michael let us talk about the fact that the vatican has reacted to this latest audio tape. what do you make of that?
:: it says that his word to get a lot of credence in the islamic world. for over a millennium there has been a struggle between islam and catholicism. when the pope made some negative remarks about the profit muhammed, he focused the attention of the muslim world upon himself and that has been taken advantage of. uma: the fact that he is directing his words to the pope is something we have not seen before.
:: that is correct, but it is bigger than that. what usama bin laden has done is gone and head of the curve. there is a movie about to be released that shows the profit in a very negative light. i think he knows that and that could cause some distress. uma: is this a strategy to raise cup -- some consciousness among the faithful said that they can take aim when it comes to dealing with muhammed as opposed to specific areas like iraq?
:: it is both, and they do not need to be more focused on iraq or afghanistan and we do not realize the love that most muslims -- all muslims have for the prophet muhammed. i am afraid that the west will find out that we have freedom of speech that sometimes words come with a price. uma: at the same time, we have seen threats before and nothing has happened. but we have to take this seriously.
:: yes, we do. this is an issue where individual muslims will react individually. the white house, a silly organization, says that every time he is desperate to get support -- there is nothing that could be more supportive in the muslim world and to oppose people who condemn the profit muhammed. the uma: at the same time, when the white house says it is an attempt to shore up support, we have seen that there are those where we are seeing arabs turned against osama bin laden -- usama bin laden.
:: that is right but we tend to take small, positive points -- and our province -- and extrapolate it across the country. i am not sure that hold water. the second point is that this is an issue -- it just goes way beyond usama bin laden. the negative remarks about the prophet, senator obama' s constant need to distance himself from islam, all of this tells us -- tells the muslim world that americans and westerners really dislike is gone. in that is a problem for the west. -- disliked = islam. problem uma: americans were asked to do you think would be most dedicated to catching a terrorist leader if he or she were president? a new poll finds john mccain with a commanding lead over his democratic rivals. the poll finds the arizona senator with almost half of those polled. clinton had 14%, obama with 10%.
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