The President has apparently stated that one of the reasons why his administration will not release the photographs of Osama Bin Laden’s body is that he feels it would be akin to “spiking the football.” As sports fans know, that can be taken the wrong way. Instead of a celebratory gesture, it can be interpreted as rubbing it in the opposing team’s collective face.
The logic follows that releasing the photos would inflame the situation in countries whose people don’t like us very much. It would provide “locker room bulletin board” material and serve as a source of motivation to our enemies. As if launching a covert mission into Pakistan and killing Bin Laden won’t be enough of a motivation or, say, having a memorial service for 9/11 on May 5th, four days after the successful mission isn’t basically an endzone dance. But I digress.
So what should we call this, exactly?
From where I’m sitting, that looks like someone at ObamaForAmerica (OFA) “spiking the football” and doing an endzone dance. And considering they’re using it for fundraising purposes for the 2012 election, the goal isn’t merely to celebrate an American victory, but to make it a distinct victory for one “team.”
Earlier this week, Obama held a dinner (which was planned months in advance) where members of both parties were to have some bipartisan fun and the President expressed a seemingly sincere desire for unity following the long hunt and eventual location of the architect of 9/11. It was a time for national celebration. I guess someone somewhere wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip away. The Obama Campaign needed to cash in as much as possible.
Now no one is accusing the President of going out and registering the domain name. But does he support the decision? Is this cynical stunt what he meant by “unity?” Obviously, he’s not going to respond to this particular blog post, but now that the url is out there, and the “mainstream” press knows about it, are they going to ask the Press Secretary about it? Will the media contact OFA and find out who purchased the domain name? Was this the ill-advised action of an intern or was this cleared by someone with authority over there?
Those are the questions. Will the press do their jobs and ask them, or will they simply make the editorial decision to ignore uncomfortable situations for the President like they did when he was candidate in 2008?