Nice to have a few things go right.
Sure, the initial reports of the raid on bin Laden’s hideout were a bit confused and got corrected, and will get further corrections, but, if I may parrot others in this cliché, that’s why they call it the “fog of war”. Even when things go stunningly right, things go wrong. Reality is always a bit messy. And reality is good.
Also fun to watch Pakistan argue with itself:
“We are incompetent! He was right under our noses and we couldn’t sniff him out!”
“We are not incompent! We knew all a long…um, ah, I mean…”
“No. We aren’t that unified. Yes, our president might have said he didn’t know where bin Laden was. He was telling the truth. We don’t tell him everything.”
“We are incompetent! The Americans flew practically right to our most important military academy, started shooting and blowing things up, stayed around for 40-minutes, and we didn’t really notice.”
Yes, nice to have things go right for the USA.
Though, that isn’t the news here. A lot of things have gone right for this administration, the news is that they are finally getting credit. After two-plus years in office, Barack Obama’s administration might have finally figured out how to get their horn blown.
Take the case of the bloody photos of bin Laden’s head partly blown away by a shot to his left eye. The CIA director says that they probably will be released, eventually.
Anderson Cooper has probably already rehearsed his somber warning that maybe we should all turn away before he shows us the picture, milking it, delaying (so dad can make it back from the kitchen with his beer and not miss anything), and…only showing us the image once…he is sure his warning has maximized the audience. These pictures are so real CNN practically taste the ratings.
The White House then mutters about it being the president’s decision.
Many hours pass, long enough for indignation and outrage to start to build in the Muslim world over such disrespectful pictures being released. Finally, hours later, it leaks that President Obama has decided not to release the pictures. (It is probably official by the time you read this.)
Perfect! Like the mostly-never-seen shark in Jaws, these pictures are most real and vivid before we see them. Showing them has clear downsides. Refusing to show them has different downsides. But having the administration spending two days arguing in public about whether to release them has none of the downside, and tons of upside. Getting everyone weighing in on whether to release or not release makes them all buy in on the premise that the pictures exist. Did we manage to get some of the Muslim world on record saying it would be terrible to release the photos? Hamas? Iran?? Gosh, I hope so. It might make it harder for them to later convince anyone he is still alive.
CIA Director Leon Panetta had to be on the losing side of predicting they would eventually be released, but he can handle that. (And he might eventually be right.)
How tidy. Things don’t happen this nicely by accident. The Obama administration is getting good at the PR side of their job.
-kb, the Kent who wonders whether he smells a Plouffe, or maybe just a clever PotUS who can walk, chew gum, and get things done.
©2011 Kent Borg