Lingering Questions

President Obama's bin Laden bump will not last until the election. George H. W. Bush won a war and still lost the next election because of a bad economy. The only question is how long will it last? The White House seems to be doing everything it can to neutralize the good will that the nation felt at the news of bin Laden's death.

Exactly what happened? We got several versions. First, bin Laden was killed while using a woman as a human shield. Then we heard that she died on a different floor. Bin Laden may or may not have been resisting. The SEALs may have thought that he was about to resist.

How many helicopters were there? Originally they said two and one went down for mechanical reasons. Then they insisted that they had never said "mechanical". Other reports said that there were additional helicopters. Were these backup copters?

Some reports said that the "armed resistance" was only one man.

How many women were shot? How many were killed?

Originally it was implied that the President and staff were watching the entire thing live through a helmet cam. Later we heard that they could not see the actual 20 minute raid. What were they looking at in the photo?

Obama is reported to have taken 16 hours to decide to make the raid. That's more than just sleeping on it. So much for his decisiveness.

Exactly what were the orders? Was the team supposed to capture or kill bin Laden or outright assassinate him?

Today the White House came up with a simple solution to multiple versions - no new details will be released.

The burial at sea disturbed many people, also. It seems overly sensitive to someone who ordered mass murder. Obama personally ordered that pictures of the body will not be released. He is almost apologizing to the Muslim world for having killed a terrorist.

Personally I think that we should have desecrated his body. Many devout Muslims worry about how their body will be treated. The lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohamed Atta left orders on how his body should be treated.

I think that we should announce that if you kill Americans then we will eventually find you, we will invade your home, we will shoot your wife/wives, we will shoot you in the brain, and we will desecrate your corpse. That might discourage future attacks.

By taking personal credit for every aspect of the operation, Obama set himself up for criticism and made the White House responsible for getting the details straight. The more they withhold information or issue conflicting statements the more they distract from the feel-good buzz that would help Obama.