Raw Story reporter Eric Brewer recently asked White House Press Secretary Dana Perino to comment on Senator McCain’s interesting claim that he knows how to find Osama bin Laden.

Q: John McCain said recently that he knows how to get Osama bin Laden. And a couple of months ago he said that he knows how to improve our capabilities so that we would capture bin Laden. Has Senator McCain shared his knowledge with the President?

MS. PERINO: Maybe you haven’t been here. I’ve been very astute at not getting involved in the 2008 election, and I’m not going to start now.

Q: It has nothing to do with the elections.

MS. PERINO: Yeah, it does. It has everything to do with the election. That’s exactly why you’re asking the question. And I’m not going to answer it.

More than a year ago, and many times since. Senator McCain talked about a plan to “get” bin Laden: “As president of the United States I will get him,” McCain said. “I’ll bring bin Laden to justice, I promise you.” During last Tuesday’s presidential debate, McCain said:

I’ll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I’ll get him. I know how to get him. …I’ll get him no matter what and I know how to do it.

Brewer lists four possibilities:

1). McCain thinks he knows how to capture Osama, has told Bush how to do it, and it’s not working;

2). McCain knows how to capture Osama, has told Bush how to do it, and Bush is waiting for the most politically opportune time to execute the plan;

3). McCain knows how to capture Osama, but is keeping his plan a secret, therefore putting his own political fortunes over those of his country; or

4). McCain doesn’t have a clue about how to catch Osama.

Senator McCain also likes to say “I know how to win wars.” Another extravagant claim that lacks supporting evidence.

Of course, capturing or killing the leader of al-Qaeda is not a trivial task. The evidence is mounting that President Bush and SecDef Donald Rumsfeld botched the only serious attempt so far. Watch this segment from last night’s “Rachel Maddow Show.” She interviews a former Army major who led the secret Delta Force mission to try to kill Osama bin Laden nine weeks after 9/11.

Bush’s Global War on Terror has been yet another administration fiasco. Al-Qaeda is stronger than ever, even though the world’s military superpower has supposedly been devoting all its might to fighting them for 7 long years.

UPDATE: Despite the findings of a new NIE on Afghanistan, the McCain campaign is still clinging to the boneheaded concept that Iraq is the “central front in the war on terror.”