Prediction
By Mitch Berg
As re the Bin Laden photos:
- Obama, citing perfectly valid security and moral concerns, will decline to release photos of a dead Bin Laden. (CHECK)
- The media will devote slavish news coverage to the tiny fringe of conservatives, Republicans and Tea Partiers that question the “Bin Laden is Dead” story (studiously ignoring any leftists who do), and giving obsessive coverage to “polls” (that will, inevitably, present “questions” as “doubts”), making a tiny non-story into a “story”. Absent any empirical evidence of a significant trend (other than giving premium air time to a few highly-placed doubters – see Orly Taitz), the mainstream media will build a potemkin trend – purely to discredit conservatives. Read: “purely to discredit Obama’s opposition”.
- This coverage will rise to a crescendo right around the time a GOP nominee starts to push for some traction against the incumbent, right about the time non-wonks and non-news-junkies start paying attention to the election; figure around Labor Day, 2012.
- Look for the pictures to be released (via an elaborate leak – maybe Wikileaks or something similar) about a week after that crescendo.
“Gosh, Berg, you’re cynical”.
As re the relationship between the Democrats and the mainstream media, “cynicism” is just another word for “Zen-like perfect awareness”.
May 5th, 2011 at 6:08 am
[…] at Shot In The Dark. […]
May 5th, 2011 at 6:26 am
I’m in the camp who thought Bin Laden was dead, buried in one of the first bombing raids in the initial Afghanistan campaign. I based my assumption on the fact that Bin Laden had gone silent, had many reasons for not going silent in order to show the free world that he was still alive, and had only shown up in dodgy videos and tapes that looked liked they were cobbled together from old material.
Thus, when I heard of the shooting of Bin Laden, my first reaction was “let’s see the evidence.” I assumed that the President would talk for 10 minutes or so and that he was already prepared with photos which we would see Sunday night.
He announced that he gave the order to bring Bin Laden “to justice” (in this case, cowboy-style) and that we had “possession of the body.” The next day stories leaked out about a “burial at sea” and I couldn’t believe it was true. I assumed we would want to keep the body, have it examined by forensic experts (enough to convince doubters) and then, after a month or so, dump the body into the Arabian Gulf.
Instead we now have birth-certificate redux with the President denying us any “evidence.” We know a compound was shot up. I don’t doubt that.
May 5th, 2011 at 6:42 am
I realize that no amount of evidence will convince everyone. Thus, Adolf Hitler is still alive in Argentina, but proper handling of the evidence, the body, would go a long way towards dispelling conspiracies. How many people think Saddam Hussein is still alive?
As for the “gruesomeness” of the photos or video, we live in a society in which every popular police show starts with an explicit scene in which a dead body is carved up by a CSI girl, usually wearing bright-colored dresses while doing the carving. We probably can handle some ugly photos.
As for worrying about the sensitivity of the Arab street or the Muslim world, I’ve had my fill of bending over backwards for that.
Our President, a political genius (all Democratic Presidents are political geniuses) has badly handled the reporting of the bringing to justice of Bin Laden.
May 5th, 2011 at 7:21 am
You think Labor Day 2012? Let’s make some sport and have a pool to predict the day the first pictures leak. I don’t believe it will take that long, especially if the economy is in the toilet at the end of this year.
May 5th, 2011 at 7:22 am
A pool it is.
Figure out your bets.
Post at noon.
May 5th, 2011 at 7:35 am
So 45% is a “tiny fringe” then? Duly noted.
May 5th, 2011 at 7:35 am
Why would we have questions?
From the Bookworm room.
Okay, what do we have here:
1) There was a firefight.
2) There was no firefight.
3) Bin Laden was “resisting.”
4) Bin Laden wasn’t armed. (Makes the concept of “resisting” interesting.)
[4.a) And the newest one: the SEALS thought bin Laden was reaching for a weapon.]
5) He used his wife as a shield.
6) His wife was killed too.
7) He didn’t use his wife as a shield. She ran at a SEAL who shot her in the leg, but she’s fine.
8 ) Some other woman — the maid? — was used as a shield. By somebody. Downstairs.
9) That other woman — downstairs — was killed.
10) Maybe not. She was killed unless she wasn’t — and who was she, anyway?
11) Bin Laden’s son was killed.
12) Unless it was some other guy.
13) Bin Laden’s daughter saw him get killed. She’s undoubtedly traumatized, poor dear.
14) They were going to capture Bin Laden until the problem with the helicopter, which was:
A) It had mechanical trouble
B) It did a hard landing
C) It crashed
D) It clipped a wall with a tail rotor, effectively a crash
15.) They were never going to try to capture him; it was always a kill mission.
16.) No, it wasn’t.
17) The chopper blew up.
18) The SEALs blew it up.
19.) Panetta said yesterday the world needed proof and the photo would be released.
20.) Obama said today in an interview he taped with Steve Kroft for “60 Minutes” to be broadcast Sunday that it won’t be released. It’s too gruesome, would offend Muslim sensibilities (something he worries about a lot — I personally do not give a warm fart on a wet Wednesday about Muslim sensibilities), and how would Americans feel if Muslims released pictures of dead Americans?
21.) Kroft — who’s not a total idiot — pointed out that ever since “Black Hawk Down” days, Muslims have been doing precisely that, filming American bodies being dragged through the streets, filming Daniel Pearl’s head being cut off, filming any and everything.
22) Obama gets pissed at CBS, the tape gets cleaned up, that question disappears. (Inside info.)
23.) We got a “treasure trove” of stuff from hard drives, etc.
24.) There were no phone lines, and no internet access at the “mansion,” they didn’t even have TV — what “treasure trove?”
25.) There is obviously in the pictures of the place a large satellite dish. I guess they used it for making salads.
26.) And now, just today: apparently the idea was to capture him, but only if he was naked. There was a suspicion he might be wearing a suicide bomber type explosive vest, or belt. So if he’s not naked and you can’t see if he has a vest on or not – shoot him.
_______________________________________________________________
The Admin clearly isn’t on the same page on anything other than the need to appease the sensitivities of the Muslim world. Even that goal is proving elusive.
May 5th, 2011 at 7:42 am
TiSP,
The 45% included everyone from the hardcore “Obama Was Born in Kenya!” crowd down to people who said “Obama was born in the US, but where IS the birth certificate?”
In other words, the media meme – your sole source of “thought” – was a distortion.
Not that you’re smart enough to know the difference.
May 5th, 2011 at 7:44 am
No problem releasing Abu Graib (sp?) pictures. Bias? What Bias?
May 5th, 2011 at 8:55 am
JPA,
To be fair, the Abu Ghraib pictures were taken (unauthorized) by the “military police” who ran the prison, who passed them around until they fell into the media’s hands; the media ran them (when it suited them to do so).
I doubt the JSOC task force is going to let anything slip out on its own. If it happens, it’ll have “help”. And the media will run them…
…when it suits them.
May 5th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Well Obama does have a bit of a problem making decisions on this whole “terrorist” thing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1182228/Barack-Obama-U-turn-military-terror-trials.html
Release Gitmo photos, don’t release Gitmo photos. Gee, what’s a community organizer to do?
May 5th, 2011 at 10:06 am
I’ll jump in the pool by predicting photo leak by July 4th. I’ll donate $25 to the chairty of the winner’s choice if I’m wrong.
May 5th, 2011 at 10:07 am
But hey, Muslim nut jobs “Love death as (we) love life”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl12Zqa18Yk
so I would think the Osama death photo would not enrage them. They seem to love that death porn thing.
May 5th, 2011 at 11:01 am
[…] commenter Golfdoc50 suggested that we put our rhetorical money where our literal mouths are as re my post this morning predicting the eventual release of the Bin Laden snuff pix. You think Labor Day 2012? Let’s make […]
May 5th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
In our earlier briefing we may have given the impression that Osama bin Laden was dead. He’s only mostly dead.
May 5th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
So that’s why the burial at sea happened: to keep him away from Miracle Max!
May 5th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
I have noticed that the media says things like “Half of republicans are birthers!!!”
for some reason they never tell you how many non-republicans are “birthers”.