The Other McCain

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White House Can’t Get Its Story Straight on How Osama Bin Laden Was Killed

Posted on | May 3, 2011 | 23 Comments

This is the kind of stuff that gives rise to conspiracy theories:

The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces.
Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden’s wives was killed in the raid and that bin Laden was using her as a human shield before she was shot by U.S. forces.

(Via Memeorandum.) Jimmie Bise Jr. at Hot Air:

I can’t imagine that the anti-war left will stand quietly for much longer while President Obama does a victory lap for snuffing an unarmed old man no matter how much they may want him re-elected.

But who cares? Consistent non-partisan peaceniks tend to be kooks like Cindy Sheehan and fanatics like Glenn Greenwald. From the political perspective of the White House, who cares whether a relative handful of cranks and crackpots whine about this? I don’t seem to recall a sudden exodus of peaceniks from the Democrat Party when Bill Clinton ordered relentless bombing of Serbia in “The War of Monica’s Thong.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Breitbart says the Left is politicizing the death of bin Laden. But no, no, no, says Brian Beutler, it’s the Right that’s politicizing the death of bin Laden. And if you find all this confusing, you’re certainly not the only one:

(Hat-tip: Blogbat on Twitter.)

UPDATE: Linked by The Lonely Conservative, Bob Belvedere at The Camp of the Saints and Sissy Willis — thanks! — and now a Memeorandum thread. Meanwhile, Allahpundit is gobsmacked at the clumsiness of the White House communications operation:

How did we go from “Bin Laden had a weapon and was using his wife as a human shield” to “Bin Laden was unarmed and didn’t have a human shield” in the span of 24 hours when there’s apparently helmet-cam footage of the whole raid? Surely, surely, the White House knew that conspiracy cranks and naysayers would cite every discrepancy in the official narrative as “proof” that Bin Laden’s still alive or whatever.

Video of Jay Carney’s White House press conference:


Category: Barack Obama, Pakistan, Terrorism

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