With Vice President Joe Biden’s comments yesterday — and the release of a new web video today — the Obama campaign is using the killing of Osama bin Laden for political purposes.
And if you think it’s inappropriate, then you actually agree with … Barack Obama.
Almost four years ago, Obama criticized the Clintons for invoking bin Laden “to score political points.” As AFP reported on April 22, 2008: “… Obama’s camp accused Clinton of trying to scare Americans, after the release of a dark new campaign ad featuring Al-Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden.” And the Boston Globe noted that: “The Obama campaign accused Clinton of fearmongering with the ad.”
Obama, himself, noted in a debate that, “[W]hen Senator Clinton uses the specter of a terrorist attack with a new prime minister during a campaign, I think that is part and parcel with what we’ve seen the use of the fear of terrorism in scoring political points. And I think that’s a mistake. Now, I don’t want to perpetuate that.”
But he is perpetuating that — not by bragging about killing bin Laden (though that might be unseemly) — but by questioning whether or not Mitt Romney would have done the same. I think there is an implicit fear factor he’s hitting on — sort of like what the Clintons tried to do to Obama.