Posted on 05/05/2011 6:47:07 AM PDT by shortstop
Obama’s not going to cough up the pictures.
He’s killed Osama Bin Laden, he says, and we have to take his word for it.
This is the same guy who, a week ago, had some 40 percent of the people believing he was born outside the country. Clearly, there are some trust issues.
The check is in the mail, I’ll respect you in the morning, and we killed Bin Laden.
Trust us, we’ve got proof.
But you can’t see it.
Which raises the question: If you have proof, and won’t produce it, is it really proof?
The problem, the president says, is that we don’t show off dead guys like hunting trophies. And we don’t want to pass out ugly pictures.
And, most importantly, we don’t want to arouse the anger of “the Arab street.”
Which is where they drag dead Americans.Seems like, if I remember correctly, that when the other side kills some of us, they send pictures around the world.
And our “reporters” dutifully publish them.Cut of Daniel Pearl’s head, drag some soldiers’ lifeless bodies through the streets, hang some headless American contractors from a bridge.Seems like those pictures are pretty easy to come by.
But, not wanting to offend anybody, we’re going to keep ours secret.Which I didn’t think “transparent” administrations did. And which I didn’t think “journalists” sat still for.
Seriously, news organizations of every stripe went after pictures from Abu Ghraib, and they have self-righteously published everything WikiLeaks has given them, and have launched law suit after law suit fishing around for secret documents, yet on this matter, when the president said, “No,” they have quietly accepted it.
Nobody is talking about open government, nobody is talking about the people’s right to know, nobody is talking about freedom of the press.
Everybody is just accepting it because Barack Obama said it.
Apparently, we are all united in our belief that cowering before Muslim anger is the best way forward. The leader of an organization that killed near 3,000 of our people on one day is killed himself, or so we are told, and the proof is denied us, because we are afraid of upsetting people who routinely blow one another up at competing places of worship.
Apparently, being culturally sensitive means mastering the feat of grabbing your ankles while simultaneously kissing the Muslim world’s rear.
It doesn’t matter if they are offended.
And it won’t affect our safety, at home or away.
Many tens of millions of Muslims hate us because of their sheer bigotry and racism. No matter what we do, no matter how much we pay, no matter how much we fawn before their culture and religion, they are going to hate us.
They are haters, and we are the hated.
And a few pictures aren’t going to change that.
Their bigotry against non-Muslims in general and against Americans in particular is so fundamental to their entire worldview that no amount of pussyfooting by us is going to change a thing. If they riot and plant bombs, it’s not because we support Israel or because we have given some pretended offense – it is because they are prejudiced and savage.
Sorry to be so blunt, but we need to tell the truth on this issue.
Personally, if I was president, I would release everything.
But I’m not the president, so here’s a compromise: Show the pictures to Congress.
Every member.
The House and the Senate.
Fall back on a constitutional principle and trust representative government.
If the president insists, keep the pictures out of the public domain. But convene a few closed-door meetings in the Capitol, and give every member of the House and Senate the opportunity to attend, and do some show and tell.
Under that arrangement, the people wouldn’t see the pictures – and know that Bin Laden is dead – but the people’s representatives would.
I honestly think this is a good idea.
You’d have more than 400 people, from all over their country, who could look if they wanted.
And they could stand, in their home states and districts, and say, “I know it’s true, because I have seen it myself.”
And in the diversity of that testimony could be found confidence in the witness.
Seriously. The Congress is made up of all kinds. There are the most extreme liberals and the most extreme conservatives. There are people who’ve been there forever, and folks who came in January. They represent every region and every philosophy. Some hate Obama, some love Obama. It’s a big hodge podge and every viewpoint is represented.
So if those people came out and looked in the eye of America and the heart of their constituents and said, “We saw the pictures. He’s dead. You have my word on it,” well, that would be pretty credible.
It would be enough for me.
I would take them at their word.
I would figure that people with that many competing interests, from so many different parts of society, if they all said they’d seen the proof, that would be conclusive.
And it would keep the pictures off the evening news.
So that’s my suggested compromise.
Because we do have a right to know, and that right must be accommodated.
But it doesn’t have to be as simple as pictures or no pictures.
And it doesn’t have to be a sole proprietorship of the executive branch.
The president and the executive branch have asked us to take their word for it, and have now refused to produce evidence. If the representatives and senators were to see the pictures, and attest to Osama’s death, the legislative branch would stand as a second witness in this matter.
And like the Bible says, “In the mouths of two or more witnesses shall all things be established.”
I wish the president would show us the pictures. But if he won’t, then he should at least show them to the Congress.
So that we can settle this before it goes any further.
Screw Congress! Release the pictures to the public!
Like I’d believe what Congress told me they saw. I want the public to see the pics for themselves.
Bob is rarely wrong, but he is wrong about this.
The administration needs to know that we the people want to see the proof that Bin Laden is really dead. Nothing less will do, because this president is a proven liar.
“Screw Congress! Release the pictures to the public!”
Amen to that.
He makes a good point. Folks in congress are from all political stripes. If all 400 agree, then I can be ok with that personally. If one out of the 400 doesnt, then I have a problem.
And that's where you lose me, BL. Maybe you haven't heard but the "people's representatives" are even less popularly respected and trusted than Barack 0bama.
We are getting the same stonewalling we got over obama’s birth certificate.
In my opinion this entire thing was staged to get us off the BC issue.
A believable photoshop job takes time...
Fukino said they exist.
What makes them better than anyone else? They’d probably be more offended than us. I want to see the friggin’ pictures!!!
Do you trust politicians?!!
We may not exhibit pictures as trophies but I seem to remember photos exhibited of Uday and Qusay to prove they were room temperature.
Barry will have to release the pics eventually as this is not going away. Meanwhile nobody is asking about the hokey long form he posted last week or his lack of a cogent budget or the debt ceiling etc., etc. etc.
My sentiments exactly! Afterall, it's the American people who have paid for it these 10 years.
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