
Osama bin Laden Photos - You Can Keep 'Em
By Patricia Wilson-Smith
It should be a surprise to know one that even as we bask in the glow of President Obama’s stunning surprise announcement regarding the elimination of Osama bin Laden, the 24 hour news networks are already a-buzz with the burning question of whether or not to release photos of him, post double-bullet wound to the dome.
The question is nowhere near burning for me. I guess I don’t see this one as fodder for conspiracy theorists.
I mean let’s face it. It’s not like the Administration didn’t conduct DNA tests that prove the dead man’s identity. It’s not like bin Laden’s wife is not around to tell the real story if need be, and it’s not like those brave soldiers who risked their lives to storm the heavily fortified compound to take Osama out can’t testify to the facts. And most importantly, I’m quite certain that the members of the Obama Administration who worked so hard for so many months to plan this operation all know that if by some horrible twist of circumstance, the man who is by now fish-bait at the bottom of the Indian Ocean really isn’t bin Laden, that the real Osama is sure to show up in the next day or so pointing to some camera from a cave bunker somewhere, laughing, and holding a newspaper with a headline that celebrates Cinqo de Mayo, gleefully mocking the U.S. and President Obama’s attempt to capture him. That goes without saying.
No doubt in my mind. Osama bin Laden is dead. As a door nail. And by all accounts, his death was quick and to the point, and resulted in a rather unpleasant separation of one part of his skull from the other. Is that particular visual really something we all need to see, something that needs to be released to every media outlet in the country in order to quell the fears and doubts of those who are afraid to believe the truth?
No, no, a million times no.
As a society, our voracious appetite for the sensational, the bizarre, and yes, the macabre has reached epidemic levels. We flock to our televisions to watch people like Orly Taitz frantically waving fake documents that claim to prove that the President’s guilty of social security number fraud, even though we know she’s a flake. We turn up the volume every time we see Donald Trump, hair flapping in the wind, spouting off about his doubts about the President’s birthplace, a sad commentary on this country that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are some here who simply will never accept or embrace anyone who is different from them. And we clamor to watch every idiotic, mind-numbing reality show – the more ridiculous and train wrecked the better. All while the really important issues, the really substantive discussion of those issues, never take place.
The sad truth of the matter is that someday, somehow, long after the furor has died down, those photos will probably find their way onto the Internet for all to see anyway. If that happens, so be it. But it belittles us a nation to make the conscious decision to display a photo of someone, no matter how evil they were in life, gruesomely mutilated in death. It should be enough to know that this man, who was personally, directly responsible for so much pain and suffering, for forever changing the lives of so many Americans, can no longer do any harm to anyone. That should be enough.
So what to do about those who refuse to believe without photographic proof, you ask? How about this – invite the bureau chiefs of every news outlet in the world to the White House for a viewing. Search them for cameras of any kind – take their cell phones, Flip video and all other digital or other photo devices, anything that could capture a photo at all. Lead them into a room with a big screen television. Open the proceedings with testimony from an expert who can attest to the validity of the photo they’re about to see. Then show them the photo.
Let them inspect it thoroughly. Let them look at every gory detail, let them compare the image to other photos of Osama bin Laden, and then – turn off the damned television, usher them out, and let them do what they’re paid to do. Report the truth of the situation. Bing, bam, boom. No gory photos floating around the Internet for my 14 year old to seek out, a few days of non-stop coverage of the reveal, and we all go on with our lives, secure in the knowledge that at long last, that mad man is out of the picture.
That is all we can afford to do to quiet the calls for a more public viewing, I’m afraid. That is all we should do. After all, in truth, there is nothing to celebrate in the destruction of a human life, only in the elimination of a blight on mankind. And it goes without saying that for the family and friends of the thousands of people killed on 9/11, gazing triumphantly on the picture of a dead man’s corpse won’t ease the pain of what they endured that day. That’s not healing, and it’s not closure. It’s morbid curiosity at best, and really truly demeans us as a country. With any luck, someone, somewhere will read this and take heed before we inflict additional harm on the country by releasing gruesome photos that will do little to convince the die hard conspiratorial types anyway. I hope so. I hope that even as we celebrate this important victory over terrorism, we can remember that WE are the civilized ones, the grown-ups, and just – do the right thing here.
Hey – a girl can dream.
Political Stunner: Donald Trump NOT Running For President!
Donald Trump
Unlike my friend at MSNBC, Lawrence O’Donnell, I believe that what’s really going on is that the 24 hour news cycle has become no different than the endless sea of hokey reality shows that fill the airwaves. It seems to me that rather than just report the good old boring news, they’d rather hand over all the air time to lunatics with salacious things to say in the name of garnering ratings for their television shows, or to empty-headed politicians with pretty faces and big mouths with nothing real coming out of them (read Palin/Bachmann). The media is in the business of making us believe that non-reality is reality. Just like all the stupid reality shows that pour into our living rooms from every channel in an endless sea of staged lunacy.
I didn’t need Lawrence O’Donnell to tell me that Donald Trump was not running for President. I don’t care how many Trump towers the man has managed to build, there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING about him that says he has an intellect that could stand up to Barack Obama’s. Though I’m certain he’s at least smart enough to know that, and smart enough to know that by reviving the much maligned ‘Birther’ issue, he could get ratings for his show without paying a red cent for it. In that way, I suppose, the man is some form of media genius. But President material? Hell no.
And so, that the news media would seriously consider that he really was planning to run for President does not bode well for the future of journalistic news in this country. I mean, think of it – how many real stories went untold while CNN and Fox News followed Donald Trump around listening to him rant and rave about President Obama’s long-form, blah, blah, blah? And how many legitimate crises around the world went unreported while professional interviewers probed Donald Trump for more information about a potential presidential run that was never a real possibility? And worst of all, how many important tasks did President Obama have to put aside to deal with ‘Side-Show Donald’ and his traveling ‘birther’ act? Even if he spent five minutes on it, it was too much. All because the media didn’t know where to draw the line between the truth and a dumb, counter-productive lie.
It’s not good that the news media is so easily duped. They serve an important purpose – we need them to be lucid, and not running after every shiny, entertaining object that’s waved in their collective faces. We need them focused on real issues, real candidates, and real stories. Oh, if only this were the only time they had victimized us by giving countless news cycles to political circus acts, but no – regrettably, it is this same news media that gave Donald Trump his weeks and weeks of free, fake publicity that gave us the likes of Michelle Bachmann – a woman famous only for her shocking lack of intellect and the enthusiasm with which she puts it on display. If it was not for the shake-your-head-at-her-stupidity quality she brings to every public appearance, and the news media’s need to put showcase it, she would not now be listed among those who are considering a run for the highest office in the land. I mean, wow – really?
Well – at least as of today we can cross Donald Trump off the list of the loonies who would be President. With any luck, after the public flogging he got at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, this time he’ll hang up his fake stump speeches for good. And to steal a line from the hilarious Seth Myers, if the desire to run should rise up in him again, maybe the fox on his head will eat it.