Editorial

Where’s the bin Laden picture?

Dorian Davis Adjunct Journalism Professor, Marymount Manhattan College
Font Size:

It’s hard to believe that we can handle pictures of Mussolini’s hanging, bodies flung on top of each other in Nazi concentration camps, kids burned with napalm in Vietnam and Michael Moore tanning but not one of Osama bin Laden dead.

So it’s baffling that putting out photos of bin Laden with a bullet in his head is a problem for this administration. Because putting out ones of U.S. troops abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan wasn’t. In 2009, this same White House turned over 2,000 photos of detainee abuse all over the world at the hands of U.S. troops, reversing President Bush’s policy of keeping those pictures guarded. But now when it comes to the one picture that people ought to see — the kill shot of a man so evil that the New York Times dropped “Mr.” from his obituary, a distinction bin Laden now shares with Adolph Hitler — the administration has cold feet?

On Wednesday, President Obama told CBS News that some people skeptical of bin Laden’s death will never be satisfied, making pictorial evidence superfluous. But that PDF of the president’s birth certificate proved to millions that he was born in Hawaii. The number of birthers has dropped 50 percent since Obama released his birth certificate, according to the latest Washington Post poll. And the shot of Obama’s team in the Situation Room watching the raid on bin Laden’s compound proved to even more that Joe Biden’s alive. So pictures can be convincing.

In the same interview, he added that releasing the bin Laden photos could incite shamed radical Islamists to violence, endangering U.S. troops. But most Muslims have been against Al Qaeda from the beginning. And Pew’s new poll shows that support for bin Laden has collapsed in Muslim countries over the past decade. His base has eroded over 50 percent in Palestine alone. It’s non-existent in Turkey. If the White House wants to save Muslims embarrassment, it’s better off coming up with a plan to get Aziz Ansari off TV.

The press has been too credulous of the White House’s spin. It ought to be arguing for transparency. It’s not the media’s job to collude with the White House to protect Muslim “sensitivities” or even U.S. troops. It’s their job to tell the story. If that enrages Muslims or endangers the military, then that’s the White House’s or the State Department’s problem.

This picture is going to surface. Either some official will leak it or some blogger will sue the government under the Freedom of Information Act and get it that way. But the administration’s reluctance to share it is baffling. Obama’s budget is harder to look at than a picture of bin Laden dead. The White House put the former out. The latter ought to be next.

Dorian Davis is a former MTV HITS star turned Libertarian writer. He’s been published in Business Week, NY Daily News, XY & more. He’s an NYU graduate and National Journalism Center alum. He teaches journalism at Marymount Manhattan College.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel