Osama bin Laden "crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! Same place... He was dead.... His tongue was out."

"I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath. And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I've ever done, or the worst thing I've ever done? This is real and that's him. Holy sh**. His forehead was gruesome. It was split open in the shape of a V. I could see his brains spilling out over his face. The American public doesn't want to know what that looks like."

ADDED: Here's the long Esquire article. 

Leon Panetta admits that enhanced interrogation was part of locating bin Laden.

On "Meet the Press" today:



"Yes, some of it came from some of the tactics that were used at that time, interrogation tactics that were used. But the fact is we put together most of that intelligence without having to resort to that."

"Lady Jerks of 2012: A Year in Review."

Today seems to be my day for finding screwy ideas in Slate. This one seems to be a twist on the old feminist bumper sticker "Well-behaved women rarely make history." I can't quite tell whether Amanda Hess is trying to encourage/facilitate female jerkiness or what. Yeah, there's the ancient problem of wanting to be liked, which is really only a problem if you want it too much and want it above other, better goals. It's perfectly idiotic to think that the solution to the excessive desire to be liked is to be unlikeable.

But, whatever... the women Hess recognizes as the "Lady Jerks of 2012" are: the CIA agent who complained that she shouldn't have had to share the Distinguished Intelligence Medal for finding bin Laden; Anne Hathaway, the actress who talked back haughtily when asked about the photographs that paparazzi somehow were able to take of the body part Hess refers to as "her vagina"; Julia Gillard, the prime minister of Australia who called some political opponent a misogynist; Taylor Swift, the pretty young singer who crashed a Kennedy wedding with her Kennedy boyfriend; and Susan Rice, who, as Hess would have it, lost out on getting to be the next Secretary of State because people thought she was “prickly,” “hard-headed,” “temperamentally unfit,” and “always right on the edge of a screech.” Hess writes: "The personality police eventually moved Rice to withdraw her name from the running." That's not what I heard!

"The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that led to violence in many parts of the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison..."

"... for probation violations in an unrelated matter, then issued a provocative statement through his attorney."

The statement, delivered through his lawyer was: "President Obama may have gotten Osama bin Laden, but he didn't kill the ideology." The lawyer professed not to understand the statement. That is, the man had a lawyer, and the lawyer held him at a distance. How hard is it to understand the statement? But it's dangerous to have such a statement sticking to you, and the lawyer acted accordingly.

Does "exceptionalism" = "swagger" in the mind of the Washington Post?

"Obama, Romney differ on need for U.S. 'swagger.'" That's the headline on the WaPo front page now, linking to a story with the headline "Obama, Romney differ on U.S. exceptionalism."

The word put in quotes is "swagger," and that ought to mean somebody said that. The word appears once in the article. After a few sentences on Romney's "far tougher approach to the world" and Obama's emphasis on "diplomacy and partnerships, and American assistance where wanted without heavy-handed demands from the top," we get:

“It’s very clear in reading and hearing what the two candidates have to say that, at least rhetorically, there would be a significant change under President Romney,” said Karl F. Inderfurth, an assistant secretary of state in the Bill Clinton administration who is now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Inderfurth, who is not working with either campaign, said some of the “swagger” of the George W. Bush administration would return to U.S. foreign policy under Romney.

“Obama has tried to tone that down, and he has faced pushback for doing so,” he said.

So, apparently Inderfurth used the word "swagger," perhaps only to characterize the feeling some people got from George Bush (that cowboy), but Romney has never — as far as I can see — said we need "swagger," and Romney's manner seems wholly different from George Bush's. It seems modest and mannerly. The word "swagger" seems more applicable to Obama, who's been killing enemies with drones and likes to point out that he killed bin Laden.

It's rather annoying to see WaPo quote a supposed expert telling us what's "very clear" in the rhetoric and then slap the label "swagger" on it. Show us the rhetoric, and let us judge. I'm displaying your rhetoric, so my readers can judge.

Until now, the campaign has been concerned mostly with the economy, and foreign policy has been viewed largely as a strength for the president, who was behind the killing of Osama bin Laden.

But the recent unrest in the Muslim world — revealed in the attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans — has exposed Obama politically and been seized upon by Romney as a product of what he calls the president’s weak engagement of the world.

So, I suspect, you're putting out this article, with that front-page headline, in an effort to help shore up the fortunes of your favored candidate. Let's find a way to scare voters... equate Romney with Bush!

The conflicting philosophies Obama and Romney outlined this week are consistent in large part with their life experiences.

Those backgrounds have given each a different vantage on the world — a former chief executive’s broad-strokes view of how it should work and a former community organizer’s details-matter assessment — and different opinions about the best way to promote U.S. interests at a time of fiscal constraint at home and rapid change abroad.

What?! You're just going to make generalizations about the 2 men based on what they did in the parts of their careers when they were not politicians, and Romney's long career as a business executive is translated into a "broad-strokes view of how it should work" and Obama's short bit of time performing the little-examined role of "community organizer" shows he's a details guy! And the suggestion is that Obama actually got things done while Romney floated above it all with ideas about what "should work." Businessfolk can just believe in big dreams? Is there any evidence at all the Romney didn't have to pay attention to the facts on the ground as he went about these business enterprises, that he didn't get tested over and over by whether things actually did work?


If we keep going and click over to page 2 and scroll halfway down (which I think very few readers will do), we get to more contrasts between Obama and Bush, with Obama the "realist, free of the 'freedom agenda' ideology." Obama doesn't talk freedom ideology?

Obama’s choice of force... is the drone strike, which he has expanded greatly from the Bush years on similarly contested legal ground.

So he is like Bush. Even more than Bush.

[Obama's] realism has often felt arid to those trying to understand it, too calculating and lacking in passion for U.S. values and power. This is the vein Romney has sought to tap.

Lest you think Romney might have an advantage here, please picture him draining blood from one of Obama's veins. (The normal metaphor using "vein" has to do with mineral deposits, and the verb should be "mine" not "tap.")

"At the urging of Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions..."

"before finally approving the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL mission, according to an explosive new book scheduled for release August 21...."

The Daily Caller says it's seen text from the book, which is "Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him.

ADDED: The Daily Caller link is setting off a malware warning now. I wonder why....

"Imagine playing with your toy soldiers in this: a 1/84th scale miniature model of Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan..."

"It features a wealth of tiny details, including a Hot Wheels–sized red moving van parked out front and true-to-life foliage in the compound’s inner courtyard."

Osama bin Laden saw opportunity for al Qaeda in the Arab spring.

So he said, in his last private letter, written after the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt had fallen:

“The fall of the remaining tyrants in the region was inevitable,” he continued, and said al-Qaeda must increase efforts by “educating and warning Muslim people” about “half solutions” touted by the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamist groups. If al-Qaeda were successful in recruiting the newly freed rebels, bin Laden said, “then the next phase will [witness a victory] for Islam”. 

He said al-Qaeda could capitalise on the revolutions, including “inciting people who have not yet revolted and exhort them to rebel against the rulers” and calling for jihadis to unite in a broader media campaign to that point.... 

He did not call the people involved with the revolutions “mujahidun” or “warriors of faith”, but instead referred to them as “free revolutionaries” or “thuwaar ahrar” taking part in a “liberation (tahrir) enterprise”.

Bin Laden worried that the "human lawn mower" "conflicted with his vision for what he wanted al-Qaeda to be."

"The idea was to attach rotating blades to the front of a pickup truck and drive the contraption into crowds."

This is what WaPo forefronts in the article headlined "Bin Laden’s last stand: In final months, terrorist leader worried about his legacy," but if you keep reading to the very end, you'll see that the main image problem that troubled him was false oaths:

When Pakistani American Faisal Shahzad tried to detonate a car bomb in New York’s Times Square in May 2010, his attempt, widely hailed by jihadists, drew a surprising rebuke from bin Laden, who took a rare break from his self-imposed seclusion in central Pakistan to denounce Shahzad. 

It wasn’t the prospect of civilian deaths that upset bin Laden, but rather the fact that Shahzad had planned the act after swearing a loyalty oath to the United States as a newly naturalized citizen. 

“You know it is not permissible to tell such a lie to the enemy,” bin Laden wrote... Complaining of the “negative effects” to al-Qaeda’s image, bin Laden noted that jihadists already were under suspicion in parts of the world for “reneging on oaths, and perfidy.”

Arianna Huffington calls Obama's bin Laden ad "despicable."

She said:

"I don't think there should be an ad about that... It's the same thing Hillary Clinton did with the 3 a.m. call. 'You're not ready to be commander-in-chief.' It's also what makes politicians and political leaders act irrationally when it comes to matters of war because they're so afraid to be called wimps, that they make decisions, which are incredible destructive for the country. I'm sure the president would not have escalated in Afghanistan if he was not as concerned, as Democrats are, that Republicans are going to use not escalating against him in a campaign."

"The Five Stages Of GOP Reaction To Osama Bin Laden’s Death — And What’s Next."

The top post at Talking Points Memo, which I visited after I noticed it on my Blogroll and thought hey, I haven't gone there in a long time and then I wonder why I never go there anymore and then oh, I see.

ADDED: ... and then I'm going to blog about this and then hey, I need 5 stages.

"President Obama is increasingly taking the unusual route of bragging about how he killed a man."

"That's how I might expect a very far-left fringe candidate to describe our successful mission to kill the head of al Qaeda."

Bin Laden was not buried at sea.

According to Wikileaked documents, his body was brought to the United States on a CIA plane.

So we had this respectful burial at sea, which was intended to impress/mollify/appease whomever, and now it turns out it never happened. I think messages of respect can be meaningful, even if they are lies, but they must be believed. The messenger needs a reputation for honesty. And the exposure of one lie — especially one this big — makes all your other messages suspect.

Should Obama apologize? What's the point? It will not be believed.

IN THE COMMENTS: Many people don't like the way I've phrased this post. Traditional guy says: "this was a leak from a gossipy analysis done by Stratfor which is not a US Government entity but is a private seller of rumors."

And fleetusa said: "This is no longer on Drudge. Error? Internet Mischief?" I original got to the story I linked to through Drudge. It was the top story at Drudge an hour ago, with a photo of bin Laden. I wonder if someone in the administration asked/pressured Drudge to take it down. It is harmful to American interests. I wouldn't have posted if it hadn't been so conspicuously proclaimed on Drudge.

"Five years ago today, a few thousand of us gathered in Springfield, Illinois, to launch an improbable campaign for president."

Email from Barack Obama.

The task was to build a grassroots movement capable of making the kind of change we believe in.

You've got to see this video about that journey -- it will make you smile...

Oh, really? Let me try...



Trying to rekindle the old spirit. Did I smile? Of course! It's a nice presentation of all the smiley Obama-related things there are... including catching the fly, dancing with Ellen, hugging his daughters, singing "Let's Stay Together," and saying he just killed Bin Laden. And Joe Biden. I always laugh when I see Joe Biden, but maybe that's just me.

Taliban shoot down helicopter and kill "30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite unit as the Navy SEALs who killed... bin Laden."

"It was the deadliest single loss for American forces in the decade-old war against the Taliban."

"The CIA operative who was responsible for tracking down and ultimately killing Osama Bin laden may have had his cover blown..."

"... because of his distinguishing yellow tie."

(Reminiscent of the old National Enquirer article with John Edwards and his love child and the distinctive pattern on the hotel curtains.)

"Older bin Laden widows think younger wife tipped off US."

See, that's the thing with polygamy. There's always the intrigue... the jealousy....

"There is... a rare historic opportunity... to free yourselves from servitude to the desires of the rulers, man-made law, and Western dominance."

Osama bin Laden's posthumous message, praising the revolution in Tunisia and Egypt.

"You plaster your naked daughters across billboards in order to sell a product without any shame."

"You have brainwashed your daughters into believing they are liberated by wearing revealing clothes, yet in reality all they have liberated is your sexual desire."

Wrote Osama bin Laden in his letter to us — the American people — in 2002. That's why it's considered really funny and helpful that there's a treasure trove of pornography in the bin Laden treasure trove. It's a treasure trove, you know?

RELOCATED FROM ALTHOUSE2: Today's bin Laden news: Soufflé & Porn.

Everyone's talking about:

1. George Bush was eating soufflé when he got the phone call saying that bin Laden was dead.

2. They found porn in bin Laden's Abbottabad abode.

COMMENTS(Relocated):

reader_iam said...
Ba-doom!

MAY 13, 2011 3:02:00 PM CDT
rhhardin said...
Either Osama's wives weren't doing their job, or it's their porn collection.

MAY 13, 2011 3:04:00 PM CDT

Ralph L said...
It would be more accurate to say he was digesting souffle when he got the news:
"I excused myself and went home to take the call"

He obviously didn't feel like impressing the other restaurant guests by taking a call from the President in public.

MAY 13, 2011 3:14:00 PM CDT
Jason (the commenter) said...
What do they mean by "porn"? We're talking about somebody in league with Islamic fundamentalists. Was it women with uncovered faces or what?

MAY 13, 2011 4:11:00 PM CDT
Sixty Grit said...
Goats were involved.

MAY 13, 2011 4:16:00 PM CDT
Meade said...
Goats with uncovered faces?

MAY 13, 2011 4:19:00 PM CDT
Jason (the commenter) said...
It's a female goat unaccompanied by a male relative!

*swoon*

MAY 13, 2011 4:30:00 PM CDT
Meade said...
Down, boy.

MAY 13, 2011 4:33:00 PM CDT
Jason (the commenter) said...
Meade: Down, boy.

If it involves boys is it even considered pornography over there?

MAY 13, 2011 4:41:00 PM CDT
Jason (the commenter) said...
What if it's gay porn and bin Laden turns out to have been a homosexual? That would make gay history month pretty damn interesting!

MAY 13, 2011 4:44:00 PM CDT
Sixty Grit said...
Just like you guys to take something pure and natural like goat porn and turn it into something tawdry.

Now where were we - oh yeah - decrying the destruction of the original blog due to political pressure exerted by the Obama administration. The wise and powerful Obama determines who shall live and who shall die, and don't you forget it.

MAY 13, 2011 4:46:00 PM CDT
Meade said...
"...the destruction of the original blog due to political pressure exerted by the Obama administration."

You mean he's been sitting up there in the Oval Orffice all day, clicking "report abuse" over and over again? That's it then -- Obama has lost me.

MAY 13, 2011 5:08:00 PM CDT
dbp said...
It would have been funnier if GWB was enjoying porn and OBL was eating a Souffle.

Actually either way is pretty good.

MAY 13, 2011 5:08:00 PM CDT
Sixty Grit said...
Meade wrote...

"You mean he's been sitting up there in the Oval Orffice all day, clicking "report abuse" over and over again? That's it then -- Obama has lost me."

What else has he got to do? Biden and Panetta are doing all the real work. And Hillary! Don't forget Hillary!

MAY 13, 2011 5:16:00 PM CDT
reader_iam said...
Orffice: n. An office shaped like an orifice.

I'm so stealing that, Meade.

And, Sixty Grit?

Just like you guys to take something pure and natural like goat porn and turn it into something tawdry.

Thanks for forcing me to lie to my son when he asked why I'm laughing. I'm pretty open with him, but I am just not prepared to discuss the concept of goat pr0n at this stage.

MAY 13, 2011 5:28:00 PM CDT
edutcher said...
Bet you bin Laden was the only one with the really good goat porn.

...and Dubya didn't crow a bit about "his" policies being vindicated.

MAY 13, 2011 5:48:00 PM CDT
shiloh said...
Still whining about Obama?

Again, why are conservatives soooo fixated/obsessed w/porn?

Rhetorical questions.

>

From a friend of a poster at another forum:

Go to your nearest bar and order an Osama bin Laden: two shots and a splash of water.
~~~~~

take care

MAY 13, 2011 6:02:00 PM CDT
The Grand Inquisitor said...
I love this contrast, Althouse.

I love it.

Our President is just living the life of an American, with access to foods and cultures and ideas, and also facing a lot of criticism with grace.

Osama is living in a van down by the river with his 15 year old wife and his skank magazine, preaching nonsense to nobody.

Reminds me of that other contrast: our amazingly advanced helo wreckage against their poorly built wall. We have futuristic silent helicopters because we are an open society bringing in the best minds. Many of our engineers are middle eastern, too. They can't even build a wall right, and they built it just so they can hide.

MAY 13, 2011 6:27:00 PM CDT
TWM said...
I've been in law enforcement for 30 years now, and I can say that in all that time, I've never done a search warrant where I did not find some type of porn. Yeah, it may just be a Playboy in a bathroom, which really isn't porn in my opinion, but whatever you call it, naked people and search warrants go hand in hand.

MAY 13, 2011 6:56:00 PM CDT
Michael said...
I would have thought OBL would kill himself if he had only DVD porn. That would get old quick unless the couriers were bringing in thumb drives with more up to date stuff.

MAY 13, 2011 8:36:00 PM CDT
Kylos said...
Saddam was found with porn as well. I don't recall seeing any goats in his collection.

MAY 13, 2011 9:28:00 PM CDT