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Bin Laden documents diss Joe Biden. Did he get 'The Onion' in Abbottabad?

According to declassified Osama bin Laden documents found at his Pakistan compound, Al Qaeda's late leader called Joe Biden 'totally unprepared' for the presidency, and left him off a hit list.

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Bill Adams/The Express-Times/AP
Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Lafayette College Wednesday, May 2, in Easton, Pa. According to declassified Osama bin Laden documents found at his Pakistan compound, bin Laden did not think much of Biden, apparently.
  • By Peter Grier Staff writer

Osama bin Laden did not think much of Joe Biden, apparently.

In newly declassified documents found last year at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and released Thursday, the late leader of Al Qaeda urges his followers to draw up plans to assassinate top US leaders, including President Obama and Gen. David Petraeus. But he left Vice President Biden off his notional hit list.

“Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency for the remainder of the term, as is the norm over there,” reads a letter that West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center believes was written by bin Laden. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the US into a crisis.”

Hmmm. So Joe Biden’s judgment cannot be trusted, in the eyes of someone who used to be thought of as the world’s greatest terrorist leader. Shall we point out that Biden opposed the decision to carry out the raid that resulted in bin Laden’s death?

That’s what Biden said publicly at a meeting of congressional Democrats in January, if you remember. He said that prior to the raid the group of senior officials gathered to council Mr. Obama largely equivocated.

“We owe the man a direct answer. Mr. President, my suggestion is we don’t go,” said Biden, as he retold the episode to assembled lawmakers.

Biden said he wanted two additional pieces of evidence before he would have ordered the assault. He hasn’t specified what those pieces might have been.

OK, we hear you there in the back row – maybe this proves OBL’s point. As events later showed, that might not have been the best advice. The Navy SEAL raid will forever be a highlight of the Obama administration’s antiterrorism effort.

But bin Laden himself might still be alive if the veep’s words had carried the day. Just saying.

As for Biden, it’s tough when you can’t get respect from your nation’s enemies – especially when the reason you were on the ticket in the first place was your international experience. After all, he was chairman or ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a decade prior to the 2008 election.

Perhaps bin Laden, holed up with multiple wives and kids in a compound he couldn’t easily leave, spent too much time surfing the Web, and ran across the satirical publication The Onion.

Onion writers depict Biden as a beer-swilling, mullet-wearing, Trans Am-driving embarrassment to the nation. Onion headlines include “Joe Biden Shows Up to Inauguration with Ponytail” and “Obama Asks Biden to Not Stand So Close.”

After all, it’s not always easy for readers to tell what’s satire and what’s real in US politics, even if you’re a native English speaker.

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