It's a shame someone didn't unfurl a "Mission Accomplished" sign behind him during his speech...

Looks like the script-writers and Obama's handlers had a communication breakdown.

It adds a bit of credence to the rumors that Obama was not very involved in the decision-making process. The public still has a lot of questions about how this all went down, and Obama doesn't seem to know very many of the answers. The danger that he's running into here is that he's making it easier for the public (and the Republicans) to separate him from the success of the operation. There's a lot yet to happen here, and we'll see how it all comes out. But it's leaning towards my theory that it will be a political non-issue by the end of the year.

Gee, according to the NEw Yorker, Obama was arranging desks at the CIA and handing out assignments and trapper/keepers. If this exact same scenario had happened under Bush, he'd be denounced as a war criminal.

KateC, yeah, the Left is on their own side, and they won't say boo against Obama as long as they think he's one of them. Because, as usual with the Left, it's all about them.

If they wanted to be respectful to the corpse, why not give it to his family.

That was what got me about his announcement: empty podium, then he appears from a doorway and walks a LONG way up the hall to the podium, and proceeded to give this almost blank-faced speech. The setup was bad enough, but the way he said it was downright strange.

I'd have fed Ladin's body to pigs.

I would have dragged the body thru the streets, then set it on fire.

Wait...that's not the Islamic funeral ritual? huh, who knew?

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Our focus? The quality of the PR.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Yeah, well, Churchill was a hero after WWII, yet he got clocked in the 1945 election. Why? PR...

Yeah, well, Churchill was a hero after WWII, yet he got clocked in the 1945 election. Why? PR...

Churchill's party didn't have a majority of seats during the war. He was in charge of a coalition government that was formed when Chamberlain resigned.

Labor and Liberals joined the Tories until 1945 when the war was all but won and a new election was called. Sensing an end to the war, the British public was emotionally moving on to post-war social issues, an area in which Churchill was not widely acclaimed.

Our focus? The quality of the PR.

Our focus is the amount of credit Obama is taking for the success of the operation and whether it is warranted.

The setup was bad enough, but the way he said it was downright strange.

Posted by: Firehand

The way Obama say everthing sounds strange. Each sentance sounds like a declarive statment confined to its own private paragraph.

"Our focus is the amount of credit Obama is taking for the success of the operation and whether it is warranted."

Meanwhile, America and the world celebrates the end of Bin Laden.

Keep that focus, though. Maybe when the election nears Obama will whip out the dead OBL photos and bitch-slap the GOP candidate into the next election cycle like he did to Trump with the birth certificate.

Unbelievable. People scream for Bin Laden's head for ten years, and when they get it, they complain it was delivered with excess PR cheese.

Well, it's really official now. In your eyes, Obama can't do anything right. Are you even hearing yourselves?

"...they complain it was delivered with excess PR cheese."

That's the really unbelievable part, Gog, they're complaining that there isn't enough cheese. It's the cheese that they're clamoring for!

Those who suffer with Obama Derangement Syndrome will find any reason to criticize him.

The burial at sea was a good idea. Now his sick followers can't build a shrine over it. I hope they covered his mutilated corpse with bacon grease. They want a shrine for his body? They can build a raft in the middle of the ocean where he was sunk.

As for releasing the photo, the wise thing is not to do it. That would undoubtedly incite another riot, like the Qu'ran burner.

Osama bin Laden is dead. It is unfathomable that the naysayers will find something to criticize at this point. Obama could not have done things to make him more dead, or in a more highly dead condition.

I'm with Gog, whistleDick, and Patrick. I've spent a plenty of time criticizing Obama over the last three years (and I didn't vote for him), but this was a job well-done, with a minimum of casualties, and a maximum of bin Laden deadness.

Taking him alive wasn't a real option, not without a lot more dead people. Whether OBL was armed or not, people in that compound were armed and were ready to defend him with their lives. Dumping the body in the sea was the only way to avoid a shrine for kooks, and from what I understand, no country wanted to take the body anyway. The news afterward got a little garbled at first, but is that really so surprising for such a quickly-executed and dramatic mission? The Seals were still being de-briefed. We'll be getting more details as time goes on. You're going to condemn Obama for that?

And as to him allegedly taking too much credit -- for Pete's sake! Bush was hanging "mission accomplished" banners for a lot less. I'd be bouncing off the goddamn walls hooting if I were the president overseeing this mission. If you ask me, he showed restraint.

...like he did to Trump with the birth certificate.

Obama didn't win that one. He didn't actually lose it either. But Obama did let Trump set the agenda and force the issue, which reflects poorly on him.

And the "more important" stuff that Obama was working on turned out to be a visit to the Oprah show.

And now people wonder why it took so long to produce the document when it took only a short letter to the department of vital statistics to get it.

In all, he didn't deliver as effective a smack down to the birthers as he and his supporters would like to claim he did. He didn't play that as well as he should have and handed Trump at least a political tie.

And he's in danger of letting Trump have a win with the Columbia and Harvard grades. Although Trump has overplayed his hand just a bit with the the affirmative action stuff and Obama did get it bumped off the front page with the OBL news. So, that issue may be dead, which would give Obama a nice win on that one.

As president, Obama is in the big leagues...but he's still playing minor league ball too often. Two years into his presidency is too long to still be doing that.

The burial at sea was a good idea. Now his sick followers can't build a shrine over it.

Unfortunately, they're building the shrine at the house where he was killed. A smart bomb immediately afterward might have been a good idea.

And they're already calling the Arabian Sea the Martyr's Sea.

...for Pete's sake! Bush was hanging "mission accomplished" banners for a lot less.

Despite the "Mission Accomplished" hoopla (which was on the carrier and not in the White House), Bush gave a great deal more credit to the troops than to himself.

Obama is showing too much insecurity for a sitting president. He needs to realize that he's already got the job. He doesn't need to keep telling us why he'd be a good president, he needs to work on being one.

We know he did well with the bin Laden takedown. That act will always reflect credit on his stint as commander-in-chief. He doesn't need to keep telling us about how in charge he was during it.

Instead of constantly telling us how "in charge" he was, he needs to show magnanimity and give the lion's share of the credit to the troops and the staffers who did the actual leg work (no matter who was president when they did it).

Obama did well with the bin Laden takedown. But he's in danger of bungling the aftermath of it. That's part of why he's only gotten an anemic bounce in his approval ratings for it.

I hope they covered his mutilated corpse with bacon grease.

If they did they'll never admit it because they're too afraid of offending someone.

What Conan said. I disliked Bush, but I'm starting to dislike B.O. about as much.

If you knew anything about the man before you voted for him, you wouldn't have liked him then either.

...for Pete's sake! Bush was hanging "mission accomplished" banners for a lot less.

The OBL mission involved 40 guys and 4 helicopters invading a house where, it turns out, only one of the folks inside was actually armed.

The infamous Bush "Mission Accomplished" banner was for invading a country in an operation that involved coordinating the deployment of hundreds of thousands of ground, naval, and air assets of multiple nations thousands of miles from their home bases and keeping them supplied and moving across hundreds of miles of hostile terrain while fighting a foreign army on its home soil.

I'd hardly call that "a lot less."

I was for Darth Nader these last 3 elections.

"Despite the "Mission Accomplished" hoopla (which was on the carrier and not in the White House), Bush gave a great deal more credit to the troops than to himself."

Agreed. President Bush was a bit ham-handed with that banner, but he was, and continues to be, a very class act.

How is President Obama behaving differently? I'm living overseas so my media exposure may be a bit limited, but everything I've heard him say on the matter gives all credit to others and none to himself. Where is this "taking credit" criticism coming from?

Speaking of PR, I regard the "Mission Accomplished" thing as a colossal PR failure rather than any reflection of President Bush's character or worth.

From what I can see from over here, President Obama's PR team are making no such mistakes.

Ummmmm, aren't you guys just happy that he's dead? And either way, Obama gets the credit cause it was HIS administration that did it. The Generals that planned it get credit too, and they did a helluva lot more planning then Obama did.

And you had to treat the body with respect, cause otherwise the militants would have had an excuse to blow something else up.

Does it make a difference if anybody was armed? Reeeealllllly? Shoot him while he's sleeping, stab him in the shower, Hell, tie his nuts in a noose and hang him with it! The man needed to go in the interests of world peace. And a little bit of justice was done too.

Way to go guys, job well done!

Where is this "taking credit" criticism coming from?

He's being criticized for the speech announcing the death of bin Laden. He was alone on the podium (no one to share the spotlight?). There was the over-use of first person pronouns, telling everyone he directed the CIA to go after bin Laden and he determined there was enough intelligence to take action.

Some of that may have been done to deflect blame from lower-ranking folks and make sure anyone thinking about revenge attacks knows that the president was firmly behind this operation.

But, there were also the famous picture showing the president intently following the action on the big screen...which is now suspected of being staged (as the speech photos were) now that Panetta has admitted the video feed was lost for 25 minutes of the 40-minute raid.

Add to that the fact that the amateurs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue keep changing the story of the raid, who was armed, who died, who shot first (Han did!), and whether the Pakistanis were aware of the operation beforehand.

Ummmmm, aren't you guys just happy that he's dead?

Yes. And Obama deserves the kudos he's getting for authorizing the raid, whatever really happened to the video feed.

He's being criticized for....

Oh yeah, I forgot.

He's also being criticized for taking sixteen hours to make the go / no go decision once he was informed that they knew where bin Laden was.

Thanks for clarifying Conan. I saw that speech live. I didn't see any reason for that criticism. One would have to be looking pretty hard to pick it apart.

The video feed was lost for 25 minutes of the 40 minute raid? Okay, so it takes more than fifteen minutes to snap a picture? Hell, in that case, I'd be staring at that screen with even more angst than if the feed were rolling. I think it's a ridiculous notion that anxiety wouldn't have been very high in that room. You wouldn't have to stage tension like that.

Changing the story of the raid? This was a pretty big deal and reporters were understandably falling all over themselves for every little detail. I think it's pretty understandable that there were muddled reports leaked out before the bad-asses who capped him were even back in the States.

Sixteen hours? They thought he could be there a hell of a lot sooner than that. The SEALS had a mock up of the compound that they were training with. I read that nobody was 100% sure that it was him at all.

Sixteen hours? They thought he could be there a hell of a lot sooner than that. The SEALS had a mock up of the compound that they were training with. I read that nobody was 100% sure that it was him at all.

The sixteen hours was from the time they told Obama, "it's definitely bin Laden. He's there. We need to go now in order to get him." and Obama saying, "go."

I think it's pretty understandable that there were muddled reports leaked out before the bad-asses who capped him were even back in the States.

Past administrations would have a military public affairs officer or a DoD official available after a military operation to answer questions and make sure the story didn't get muddled.

The public affairs officer would be able to state what was known, what was not known at this time but would be known soon, and what would probably never be known for sure.

The Obama administration is acting like they were surprised that reporters even had questions about the details of the raid and the intelligence behind it instead of just accepting the results.

It's amateur hour at the White House press office.

I think it's a ridiculous notion that anxiety wouldn't have been very high in that room. You wouldn't have to stage tension like that.

It's not the level of anxiety that's being criticized. It's that the photo was released with the explanation that Obama and Company were following the raid in live action - with no admission that the SEAL helmet-cam video feed was out for a bit and some of the "live action" was satellite footage.

It makes sense that the president and his high-level staffers would follow the action intensely (live or by satellite). But the way this photo was released was an amateurish (campaign-oriented?) attempt to give the impression of a president far more in the thick of things than he really was. And it backfired.

From a candidate with one of the slickest media operations ever seen in a presidential campaign, Obama has morphed into a president with a public relations team that acts as if it just heard about the invention of television.

You're making both strong and weak points, but I'm just not feeling any of it. I don't buy the notion of "amateur hour" because I'm just not seeing it. You'd have to be looking pretty hard to nitpick about this.

For the love of Pete! That murdering douche bag is finally dead and, thanks to the intelligence gathering at the scene, there will be a whole lot more douche bag terrorists dead very soon (you won't hear about them, but they'll be dropping like flies). That is a great result for everybody. I think the president has been doing everything right in terms of PR. He's been low key, reasonable, and responsible. Lately, I've been very proud. I like that feeling.

You seem to not like that feeling because it wasn't "your guy" that did it. Put the partisan nitpicking aside for a moment and enjoy our national victory. You'll like it. We killed that son of a bitch.