The Right Word

The talk radio jocks have forgiven President Obama for his birth certificate, but they want to see Bin Laden’s death certificate It’s been a difficult week for patriotic Americans, some of whom remain torn between love of country and loathing for the man who leads it. Rush Limbaugh Rush Limbaugh surprised many of his critics by opening his radio show this week ( listen to clip ) offering unequivocal congratulations to President Obama for having actually done something extremely effective for a change by having had the good sense to have continued former President Bush’s antiterrorism policies – such as keeping “Club Gitmo” open, and more importantly, for making President Bush’s unfulfilled quest to capture and kill Osama bin Laden a top priority. Limbaugh also couldn’t help but admire the president for rejecting the military’s suggestion of bombing the Bin Laden compound in favour of a commando raid, even though the latter was the riskier choice. You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb, like they always do. They wanted to go in there and drop missiles and launch bombs, a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the special forces. No one else thought of that. Not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using Seal Team 6 or any of the special forces. Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth, leaving no evidence of anything after the mission. But President Obama singlehandedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death. The precision with which the Navy Seals carried out the operation was very heartening to Limbaugh whose personal happiness seems to be closely tied to his country’s military might, but he did have some concerns about the quick burial at sea and whether or not the DNA evidence was conclusive. It’s a very uplifting thing to realise that such precision can still be accomplished in this country. Last night, I was as proud as I have been of the US military in I don’t know how long, and I remain so today. I toyed with the idea of opening the programme with military music. I felt so happy and proud about this. This was a 40-minute operation, get in, get it and get out. There are a lot of questions about it, burial at sea, the DNA supposedly takes a week to get, but we’ve got it already, the proof positive it was Osama bin Laden. It’s a very, very, very, very important and positive day for the US military. Limbaugh’s admiration for the armed forces is obviously genuine, but while not wanting to rain on their parade (let alone the commander-in-chief’s), diligent journalist that he is, he couldn’t help but raise another issue that has been floated in some mainstream media outlets and especially by Hillary Clinton’s news channel of choice, al-Jazeera, that Osama bin Laden is not the commander of al-Qaida anymore and that he has long since ceased to have much importance. He also felt compelled to draw attention to the stacks of newspaper articles that have suggested that Osama bin Laden was actually killed at Tora Bora and so has been dead for years, although Limbaugh doesn’t necessarily subscribe to this theory himself. Anyway, the bottom line is that, one way or another, it would appear that Osama bin Laden is probably dead now and even if President Obama and his administration had some hand in that, it’s still a great day for America. Laura Ingraham Laura Ingraham was positively furious ( listen to clip ) about all the furore surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden – not just because she feels a ridiculous amount of praise is being lavished on President Obama simply because he managed to carry out in just over two years what his predecessor George W Bush failed to carry out in eight, but because she feels that even if Bush had achieved his goal of capturing and killing public enemy No 1 during his administration, the media would still not have given him credit for it. What would they have said if it had been President Bush to announce the killing of Osama bin Laden? Would it have been – “Well, this was his moment, the strength that he demonstrated, the resolve, the steely resolve. This is a game-changer for George W Bush?” Well, I can confidently state none of this would have been said, had it been Bush making that speech last night! Ingraham believes that if it had been George Bush who had pulled off the successful raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan after months of careful intelligence work, the media would have played down the achievement and focused instead on the other news that has now been knocked off the front pages, such as the muddled policy in Libya, Iran’s nuclear aspirations and the high unemployment and gas prices back home. She was also unimpressed by the decision to bury the world’s most dangerous terrorist’s body at sea within 24 hours of his death, because now we can never be absolutely sure if the Navy Seals actually got the right guy. And Ingraham is certainly not ready to take the president’s word on this. Where’s the picture? Is there anybody else out there wanting to see the picture of Bin Laden’s head? I do! I want the picture, I want the bullet hole. I want all of it. That doesn’t make me some kind of ghoul. I just want to see it. I want to see the photo. I want to know that the DNA matched. Why are we announcing this before the DNA match was done? Does anyone get that? That all seems just … do the DNA match and then just tell us we got the right guy. Ingraham might feel reassured if she was personally allowed to examine the photographic and DNA evidence, but as we saw with the birther issue, actual evidence can fail to convince the truly sceptical and as we all know, DNA samples and photographs can easily be doctored. Michael Savage Michael Savage was extraordinarily forthcoming this week ( listen to clip ) in his praise for the president who he has so often referred to as the most dangerous man in the country for having finally managed to kill the most dangerous man in the world. “Now some will ask, and I am not one of them, where is Osama’s death certificate, but we should take a collective deep breath and celebrate the US Navy Seals and tip our hat to the Obama administration for a job well done. He did something that Bush didn’t do, that Bush wanted to do that he said he would do and we have to give him credit for that and I’m very happy today frankly that the Hitler of our time is dead.” Savage went on to warn Republicans that they would be fools to have a go at Obama now because he managed to do, in a very effective way, what their lot failed miserably to do. Savage did have a few questions about the timing of the death announcement, however, and had his own theory, which he admitted was a little off the wall, that it might have been to distract attention from the royal wedding, to which the Obamas were not invited. He was also a little perturbed about the deference showed to Muslim tradition by burying the body within 24 hours. The man was an arch terrorist who has been hunting down Americans for 20 years. What does that have to do with Islam? Why should we respect his religious beliefs? I mean, there’s some who’ve argued he should have been chopped up and fed to pigs and the video released to the world! Anyway, aside from the burial issue and a few other minor gripes about the photograph being withheld and so forth, Savage insisted that it is a time to celebrate, not speculate, and even went so far as to admonish callers who were unable to overcome their hatred of the president long enough to simply acknowledge this one-off achievement. Now, that’s a true patriot. Osama bin Laden US television Talk radio Republicans George Bush Barack Obama US military US foreign policy Sadhbh Walshe guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 4, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.