Just when we seemed to have quieted the birthers, now we have the deathers on our hands. With the fake drama of President Obama’s birth certificate put to rest, except of course for those die-hard racists who now insist that the released long-form birth certificate is a fraud, now we have those deathers who insist that photos of the dead bin Laden must be released in order to validate his demise.
President Obama, in all of his reasoning, sense of appropriateness and concern for a terror backlash, has decided not to release the photos. Good decision. Even if he had decided to release the photos to assuage the doubters, his detractors would then say that the photos were falsified. Been there, done that.
President Obama is way too smart to play this game once again. No matter what he does, they ‘re going to diss him. That is a proven given. I am impressed by the President’s resolve in bringing America’s most wanted criminal to justice. I am likewise in awe of his firm, direct response to the perennial naysayers. President Obama’s leadership in the matter of bin Laden’s death has been nothing short of decisive, effective and professional. Period.
I do not rejoice in the death of bin Laden. As I watched the revelers in front of the White House and at ground zero, I felt an unsettled feeling in my gut. It has taken me a few days to figure this out. By celebrating the death of bin Laden, one must again face the fact that this psychopath, this monster, was responsible for over 3000 American deaths on 9/11. How I would have preferred that this event had never happened. No celebration of bin Laden’s annihilation can minimize the destruction that he wrought. There can be no joy in the death of bin Laden because his atrocious acts of 9/11 can never be undone.
President Obama handled this operation with surgical skill, made possible by the elite Navy SEALS and an intelligence agency that finally did its old-fashioned homework. However, it was The President himself who called each and every shot, who took the risk from the get-go for any error or misstep. Our President did his homework but nevertheless, he was damn lucky. He will be the first one to tell us this. His 24 hours of praise has come and gone (no surprise there) and now the misanthropes and cynics are surfacing, circling this once-in-a-lifetime leader, who just happens to have dark skin, in a fruitless, misplaced assault of condemnation.
In one week, we have degenerated from the birthers to the deathers. In one week, we have replaced one conspiracy theory with another. In one week, President Obama’s stars have shined brighter than they ever have before. The illumination is more than some can stand.
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