DC Trawler

Bin Laden still dead. Seriously.

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Yes, I know. I want to see the pictures too. Sooner or later we will, but for now we just have to use our imaginations (aided by the gruesomely detailed descriptions from those who’ve been allowed to see them). We have to be satisfied with the thought of Bin Laden fulfilling a useful role for the very first time: fish food.

That’s not enough for some people, of course. Which is why, as Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times writes:

It’s been only two weeks since President Obama reported on national television that an American commando team in four military helicopters had killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan bedroom. Within literally minutes, word of the terrorist’s death by gunshot prompted seemingly spontaneous street celebrations outside the White House and elsewhere.

Now comes word from noted pollster John Zogby that while an overwhelming majority buys the administration’s account, a surprising almost one-in-five likely American voters believes the Al Qaeda founder is not dead at all, nor buried at sea, as Obama officials have stated…

This incredulity phenomenon is a curious creation of a high-speed global media so full of unverified and unverifiable information floating about, combined with a modern cynicism about political leaders masquerading as voter wisdom.

After so many lies and misleading claims by politicians over the decades since the Kennedy assassination and its conspiracy theories (“I am not a crook” “I did not have sex with that woman”), the safest way to look wise and experienced these days is to dismiss virtually any public official’s statement as a talking point and/or lie.

The battle cry of the diehard crank: “That’s what they want you to think!”

I don’t agree with Barack’s reasons for not releasing the pictures, his handling of the post-raid “messaging” has been pathetic, and he’s given me no reason to take his word for anything. But even he wouldn’t concoct something like this out of thin air.

Well, at least not 18 months before the election…