Thursday, May 5, 2011

Randi Rhodes: Taking the High Road

President Obama says he won’t release any of the photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse. He said “We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.” No, not if by “we” he means everybody but the Bush administration. They trotted out the pictures of the dead sons of Saddam Hussein like they were hoisting the Stanley Cup. And back in 2001, the Bush Administration sent out a CIA team with instructions to bring back Osama bin Laden’s head in a box of dry ice. The problem is that Bush didn’t give them the tools they needed to accomplish the mission. Heck, he didn’t even get them the dry ice.

As President Obama put it, “We don’t need to spike the football.” You don’t want to get the most wanted terrorist of all time, and then get penalized for excessive celebration. Not only would the people in the George Bush administration have “spiked the football,” they would have done a flying chest-bump, performed an end zone dance, and jumped into the stands. But then that’s a totally hypothetical scenario. In reality, George Bush’s administration never did and never would have caught Osama bin Laden. So there’s no point in imagining what their reaction would have been.

Sarah Palin’s position is the we should publish the death photos. Sarah tweeted “Show photo as warning to others seeking America’s destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama; it’s part of the mission.” Wow. It’s hard to pack so much stupid into 140 characters. No pussy-footing! Yeah, Mr. President. Don’t get all namby pamby after you just took down the most dangerous man in the world, OK? I love how Sarah says that putting out the photos is “part of the mission.” I don’t think you had any input when it came to defining this mission, Sarah. I’m not sure Sarah Palin could have pulled this mission off, if her attempts at killing that caribou on her reality TV show are any indication.

Today President Obama traveled to Ground Zero to honor the victims of Osama bin Laden. Glenn Beck says that President Obama is “taking a victory lap in New York today.” Beck described President Obama laying the wreath as “crass and obscene.” He has some nerve. Glenn Beck is the one who put the “ass” in “crass.” Beck is also the guy who launched the “9/12 Project” so that we could supposedly feel the same unity we did on the day after the attacks of 9/11. It just proves that Glenn Beck makes a mockery of himself better than he mocks anything else.

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