Habeas Corpus

[level_head]

From another forum:

@R. Shearer:I don’t believe the conspiracies, but it wouldn’t surprise me if OBL is now registered to vote in Cook County…as a Democrat.
He would have wanted it that way, it seems -- in 2004, he was rattling off the Democrats' talking points in his pitch for John Kerry

Comments

[cateagle]

IMNSHO, calling the incumbent "Horrifically incompetent" is rather an understatement. If you're familiar with religous terms, you might appreciate why I refer to him as the "Obamanation of Desolation".

[level_head]

It amazes me that he is both (a) a relatively poor reader of speeches, and (b) highly praised for his speaking ability.

The oddly stilted feel of the UbL announcement was not because of the speechwriters; President Obama simply paused at odd places, and inflected words in unusual, awkward-seeming ways.

This effect has been event from Obama the candidate to current events.

Triumphant self-promotion was written into the speech -- by someone on staff. The president's reading of it had the feel of mundane economics.

I'm very pleased that he did what he did -- whatever it really was -- and allowed the operation against Usama bin Ladin to go forward. But the poll numbers (an average of only a 5% bounce on the news) suggests that his showmanship over the event did not succeed where it needed to.

Frankly, I am not disappointed at that. Nor surprised.

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[cateagle]

ANd I agree on both points. I'm most certainly not disappointed that he got little, if any, "bounce" and I'm certainly not surprised given what I've seen of his showmanship. Then again, when he first started running, I did a rif on John 1:46, "Can anything good come out of Chicago politics?" I couldn't leave it at just "Chicago" since my parents were born there as was I. *grin*

[level_head]

Not to mention my own Lady_Anne.

It's not where he's from, it is what he has made of himself. A small part of that is connected to what he started as, but at some point an adult has to say "this is not going to control my life" and he takes responsibility, or looks weak. It would be like continuing to blame Bush years into your own presidency.

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[jasolater]

While I don't really mind how they handled the body, it does trouble me that the way they did it is already causing even more conspiracy theories to flame up. :-/

Sometimes you just can't win.

[level_head]

This seems to be poor performance prior planned.

A great pity, because the accomplishment itself is important and laudable, and Obama deserves kudos for it. (He could have stopped it and did not; if nothing else, this was praiseworthy. And he went beyond that.)

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[jasolater]

I heard someone say earlier that it looked like a mafia style hit job, put a bullet in his head and throw him in the river. While I don't really have a problem with this, considering the subject, I wonder what the better alternatives might've been?

Just as an aside, I asked my boss today what the point would be of bringing his body to the United States, his reply, "I want to poke him with a stick". LOL.

[level_head]

*chuckle*

I understand that impulse.

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[melvin_udall]

We have hit far too many moments of incompetence not to chalk them up to maliciousness. This administration is indeed incompetent, but it is also evil.

It puts Obama in the position of not being able to produce the corpse of a man already widely thought of as years dead.

I don't think this is an evil conspiracy, but I DO think that it is horrifically incompetent.

Here's one for you. They discussed what they were going to do with the body, but not with the photos? That takes me far beyond my ability to give the benefit of the doubt.

Is there a grand conspiracy with the body or a fake UBL or what have you? No. Did the Obama administration want one, keeping people talking about ANYthing else but what they are doing to systematically dismantle this Republic? You bet.

[level_head]

Assuming arguendo that the intent is evil -- a stunt to prop up poll numbers, misdirect attention, and so on -- it is still incompetent. For the poor handling of this has produced the result overseas of a further rise of antagonism against the US, and against Obama himself.

And it is bringing criticism from even the left and the BMs (big media folks) who have staunchly defended him. Not much -- but any criticism from that end of the spectrum is a loss.

It should have been a gimme -- the death of Usama bin Ladin is such a "no brainer" positive thing (I think this is the first time I've used that term) that only college professors could decide that the US were the bad guys here.

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[richardf8]

Honestly, I think anyone skeptical enough to say that the corpse is needed as proof, is not likely to accept the corpse as proof.

Presumably, before burying him at sea, they took photos, may some DNA samples, etc. But it is not, cannot be, like the scene in Beowulf where the Hero emerges with the head of the Monster for all to see, simply as a matter of scale. Those who need to see it to confirm the hit, have seen it. Anyone else would see it on television, and could argue that it was theatre. A body from a potter's field. A makeup artist from Hollywood.

Losing the body fast . . . good idea. No one hunts it down for relics of the holy blessed martyr. Keeping it to appease critics who will call anything surrounding it "fake" in any case . . . why?

[level_head]

I personally think that it is overwhelmingly likely that Usama bin Ladin was deposited Monday some place in the Arabian sea.

But this is not a US issue -- billions around the world are thinking about this, and the Obama administration is stumbling trying to get its story straight.

Your "presumably" is telling, I think -- I'd make the same presumption. But after bragging that such pictures exist, now the world is being told that it cannot see them.

This is even after the story that he was cleaned up and prepared for burial (something that puzzled Muslims -- the story put out for why this was done was clumsily false). Wipe the blood off, put a piece of wadding in the holes and take pictures.

Those pictures would be grim -- but not the gruesome effect that is being described. If that wasn't ordered to be done, then we are back to incompetence it seems to me