OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD
Queue the circus music and Bring in the Clowns
It has only been six days since the President's announcement on "May Day," (May 1st, 2011), and already the Obama administration and the media have made so many flubs, statements and retractions, released faked and staged photos, and contradictory stories, that poor Jay Carney can do little more than flounder and stutter at the podium to the media's questions.
Worse yet, anyone who tries to have a conversation with their friends or family about this monumental news, ends up just as confused because the story keeps changing faster than headlines and bi-lines can be printed or posted.
Before I get in to what the administration has said, then retracted and corrected, then retracted and corrected again, and again, and again, I'd like to start with the most amusing part of this clumsy gov't and main stream media debacle, which is the images that have been released to the public in order either prove or support Obama's story of bin Laden being killed on Sunday, May 1st.
First on the list of images is the Official White House Photo by Pete Souza. We've all seen it. The White House originally told the press that this picture was taken as Obama and key aides "followed in real time," 'apparently on a screen that is out of shot in the White House Situation Room,' as special forces swooped on Osama bin Laden.
The agonizing "minutes passed like days," they went on to say. White House Counterterrorism advisor John Brennan added, "It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday."
We were also told by the cooperative media that, "The leader of the free world saw the terror chief shot in the left eye." Proof positive that the Navy Seals shot and killed Osama that night. The Commander in Chief saw the 'double tap' head shot, live on helmet cam!
It was also reported that, "US President Barack Obama along with his high-level team, watched live coverage in the White House, as the commandos gunned down the world's most wanted terrorist, [emphasis added] Osama bin Laden via a video camera fixed to the helmet of a US Navy Seal."
Based on the White House press statements, Fox News ran with, "National Security Team Watched Raid in Real Time." All the main stream media outlets boasted the same sentiment (CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, BBC) and the whole world was given the distinct impression that our President and key staff watched intently as the whole ordeal unfolded in real time right before their eyes. That is, until the director of the CIA botched the story.
Two days later, Leon Panetta, revealed there was a blackout during the raid. "We had some observation of
the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound."
Apparently, when the Souza photo was taken of the Situation Room during the raid, the screen that Hillary Clinton was watching while gasping with her hand over mouth and that everyone else is staring so intently at, was as blank as all their laptop monitors.
Oh well. Just because there's a complete blackout of the video feed doesn't mean they had to waste a perfectly good opportunity to stage a photo for consumption by the naive masses. The packaged propaganda just wouldn't have been complete without it.
Caution: Graphic images ahead
