Peggy Noonan Is Right

Peggy Noonan nails it: Let’s start with credit where it’s due. The U.S. Navy SEALs did it and deserve our profound thanks and deep admiration.
It was President Obama who told CIA chief Leon Panetta: Get this guy. When presidents insist, the guy tends to get got. It was Mr. Obama who made the decision not to bomb the house with predators or B2s, because that way we wouldn’t have known if we’d got Osama. It was Mr. Obama who decided to do it the hard way, the way that would allow us to know we’d succeeded. It was Mr. Obama who’d have taken the blame if the operation had gone wrong, and things like this are tricky and often go wrong because they have a thousand moving parts and almost every part has to move right. And it’s not as if the president was operating from a position of political strength. It was Mr. Obama who, having made the decision, apparently didn’t micromanage. He did his job and let the military do theirs.
But...
However, and with our president there is always a however, he has spent almost every moment since his Sunday night speech displaying both a tin ear and a chronic tendency to misunderstand his own country. His refusal to release more evidence that Osama is dead is allowing a great story to dissolve into a mystery. He is letting a triumph turn into a conspiracy theory.
Here is the fact of the age: People believe nothing. They think everything is spin and lies. The minute a government says A is true, half the people on Earth know A is a lie. And when people believe nothing, as we know, they will believe anything. We faked the moon landing, there was a second gunman in Dallas, the World Trade Center was blown up in a U.S.-Zionist conspiracy, Hitler grew old in Argentina.
There will always be people who believe conspiracy theories, and with the Internet there will be more. They are impervious to evidence. But people who care about the truth need to be armed with evidence to refute them.
Mr. Obama misunderstands all this. He tells Steve Croft Sunday on Sixty Minutes that showing photos of the dead Osama would be to “spike the football.” “We don’t trot this stuff out as trophies.” Trophies? Who does he think we are?
It’s not about pride, it’s about proof. “We got him, shot him and immediately threw him in the sea” is not enough. The U.S. government should release all the evidence it has that does not compromise security. Pictures of Osama are said to be gruesome. Then get the least gruesome one and put it out. Release the DNA evidence, incriminating information found in the house, and pictures of the raid. If there was a passport under the mattress, make it public. And let the SEALs tell their story. Allow them, if they are willing and eager, to go on “Nightline,” “Frontline” and “60 Minutes.” If they cannot be identified or don’t wish to be, put a blue dot over their faces, filter their voices, and don’t use their names.
All of this should be put in one big package and released to the world. In this way you give the nation and the world data, and a lot to talk about. That talk will crowd out and diminish conspiracy theories and deather denialism.
Americans don’t want to spike the ball. They just want to show they crossed the goal line.
http://www.peggynoonan.com/
I have questioned, somewhat in jest, some part seriously whether we got Bin Laden. I also asked questions just as the left has done in the past when they have questioned the motives of GOP politicians, especially George Bush.
President Obama is more concerned about himself and looking good as much as he was concerned in getting Bin Laden.
Obama also has shown that he is tone deaf. From his "I don't give a damn" attitude towards rising fuel and food prices.
He shows how tone deaf he is when he complains about man made climate change and then crisis crosses the country and the world in his 747.
He claims he has the most transparent administration in the history of the US and then maintains secrecy that is second to none.
He has been in office well over two years now and he still blames the Bush administration on the economy. Will he ever take responsibility for anything negative?
So, for so many people questioning whether Bin Laden is alive or dead should say something more about Obama than anything. People just don't trust him or anyone in his administration.
I really don't know how Obama can rebuild his reputation, but he can start by telling the truth and stop thinking the world revolves around him.