Thursday, May 05, 2011
The new Birther line of attack: Show us the Osama photos!
Knowing they can't criticize the president for what most everyone agrees was a well-run operation to find and kill Osama Bin Laden, some on the right are now criticizing President Obama's decision not to release photos of the dead terrorist. The same president who effectively just ordered the assassination of a mass murderer is presumed to be a wimp until he releases the photos, damn it! ...
Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's right out of a Birthers playbook: The president is presumed guilty of some silly charge until he releases a long-form birth certificate/school grades/Osama photo etc. The Birther tactic, in turn, can trace its lineage to the Swift Boat assaults of 2004, i.e. attack a perceived strength, diminishing it as much as possible, regardless of the ludicrousness of the charges. This is what's unfolding now -- and will continue to unfold in coming days and weeks and months.
Another frustrating part of the ginned up post-raid drama: The president keeps falling for these tricks. Eventually, he's going to be forced to release the photos. We all know this. At the very least, they'll be leaked somehow. Though I understand the immediate rationale for not releasing the photos, they should be thrown out there to quash the arguments of hyper-partisan cynics and conspiracy theorists alike. End the silly dispute now. ...
As for the varying accounts about the raid coming out of the White House, it's mildly disturbing. The behind-the-scenes/get-the-story-straight PR component of the raid has been horrible. But I chalk it up mostly to the natural confusion associated with such intense events. As a friend recently wrote to moi:
Knowing they can't criticize the president for what most everyone agrees was a well-run operation to find and kill Osama Bin Laden, some on the right are now criticizing President Obama's decision not to release photos of the dead terrorist. The same president who effectively just ordered the assassination of a mass murderer is presumed to be a wimp until he releases the photos, damn it! ...
Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's right out of a Birthers playbook: The president is presumed guilty of some silly charge until he releases a long-form birth certificate/school grades/Osama photo etc. The Birther tactic, in turn, can trace its lineage to the Swift Boat assaults of 2004, i.e. attack a perceived strength, diminishing it as much as possible, regardless of the ludicrousness of the charges. This is what's unfolding now -- and will continue to unfold in coming days and weeks and months.
Another frustrating part of the ginned up post-raid drama: The president keeps falling for these tricks. Eventually, he's going to be forced to release the photos. We all know this. At the very least, they'll be leaked somehow. Though I understand the immediate rationale for not releasing the photos, they should be thrown out there to quash the arguments of hyper-partisan cynics and conspiracy theorists alike. End the silly dispute now. ...
As for the varying accounts about the raid coming out of the White House, it's mildly disturbing. The behind-the-scenes/get-the-story-straight PR component of the raid has been horrible. But I chalk it up mostly to the natural confusion associated with such intense events. As a friend recently wrote to moi:
I realize this is an enormously complicated and stressful situation. In my personal experience, the more powerful the individual, the more ambiguous and indirect the conversations - under conditions of stress, the opportunity for confusion and misinterpretation goes way up.
I think the President is clearly struggling with this, and understandably so. The stress in the situation room pictures, and in his remarks at the Monday night dinner, were obvious. This stress/struggle is surely one reason for the decision not to release the photos (aside from backlash, remembering response to the Saddam 'tooth inspection' photo).
On a separate, much less serious note - how many more shambolic press conferences before Jay Carney returns to the dreaded private sector?
