PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Obama has reportedly decided not to release post-mortem photos of terror chief Osama bin Laden, and radio host Rush Limbaugh believes at least part of the reason why no decision was made until today is because Obama was trying to distract people from the dismal U.S. economy.
Rush Limbaugh
"If the lead story, or close to the lead story, is the photo," Limbaugh said on his top-rated program this afternoon, "then the more people are distracted from the slow job growth, flagging economy, rising gasoline price. You know, none of that's getting any better. The economic news is getting worse. So the longer you can keep this photo release near the top of the stack, the better off you are."
Limbaugh said the media has heaped praise on the president for making a "gutsy" decision to use commandos to kill bin Laden, rather than a bombing raid.
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"Seems to me the release of this picture is yet another gutsy decision a child of 12 could make," he said. "The American people want to see it. That's enough. That's all that's necessary. And these people on the left, they can't wait to show us pictures of horror and grief that will turn public opinion against the U.S. military. ... They'll flood 'em out there as fast as you can see it."
Limbaugh continued: "As you remember the media could not wait to see flag-draped coffins of our brave heroes coming home from Iraq. They demanded to be present at Dover when the planes landed and the flag-draped coffins were removed from the transport planes. They couldn't wait. How about the pictures from Abu Ghraib? They couldn't wait to publish those pictures. ... Did anybody, the media, the Democrats, did they care about the effects on our troops, did they care about the effects on the families of the troops, did they care about morale, did they care about the effect it might have in giving aid and comfort to the enemy? No, no, no. Did they give a whit about any characteristic they say they care about here?"
CIA Director Leon Panetta had reportedly said there wasn't question the image of bin Laden's corpse would "ultimately" be released.
ABC News is reporting Obama was doubtful that there's a compelling reason to release the photograph, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advising the president about concerns at the Pentagon and State Department that releasing a photograph could prompt a backlash against the U.S.
Regarding concerns of possible enflaming Muslim tensions, Limbaugh said, "Hell, the Taliban's demanding the pictures be released! There a lot of people out there on the Muslim side demanding proof. They don't believe it yet."
He said his personal feeling is that the photos ought to be released "because we want to see them."
That's a good enough reason right there. We the people want to see these things. There's no intel or security issue with releasing them. We can decide if they're appropriate to look at or not. For crying out loud, we all sat and watched for hours the World Trade Centers tumble. Some saw people leaping to their deaths from 110 stories high, so I think they're purposely stringing all this out. What else does he have to distract people from the bad economic news? And I also think he's desperately trying to re-create the nation's unity after 9/11, and frankly, he can't. The main reason is, that speech he gave. We didn't rally around Bush after 9/11, we rallied around the nation. We rallied around our fellow citizens after that shock. We demanded retribution. Bush's poll numbers went up, but it was never about Bush. He never made it about himself. Obama is making all of this about him.
Limbaugh joked that perhaps Donald Trump should be called in to get the photo released, after the real-estate tycoon had success in getting Obama to release his long-form birth certificate.
"One man has shown the ability to get this regime to produce things it doesn't want to produce, and that man is Donald Trump. It's time to call Trump. They said, Panetta said they were going to release the photo. Other elements of the regime said they were gonna release the photo. Drudge had it 24 hours ago. They were going to release the photo. Maybe Trump could get 'em to release just the short form of the photo. Maybe just the email size, you know just a couple hundred kilobytes, not as gory when you blow it up." sodexo, karen hunt, m. karen hunt, cbre, m. karen hunt of cbre, m. karen hunt sodexo gary cacolice, grant castle
