he talk radio jocks have forgiven President Obama for his birth certificate, but they want to see bin Laden's death certificate
It's been a difficult week for patriotic Americans, some of whom remain torn between love of country and loathing for the man who leads it.
Rush Limbaugh surprised many of his critics by opening his radio show this week (listen to clip) offering unequivocal congratulations to President Obama for having actually done something extremely effective for a change by having had the good sense to have continued former President Bush's anti terrorism policies – such as keeping "Club Gitmo" open, and more importantly, for making President Bush's unfulfilled quest to capture and kill Osama bin Laden a top priority. Limbaugh also couldn't help but admire the president for rejecting the military's suggestion of bombing the bin Laden compound in favour of a commando raid, even though the latter was the riskier choice.
You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb, like they always do. They wanted to go in there and drop missiles and launch bombs, a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the special forces. No one else thought of that. Not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using Seal Team 6 or any of the special forces. Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth, leaving no evidence of anything after the mission. But President Obama singlehandedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death.
The precision with which the Navy Seals carried out the operation was very heartening to Limbaugh whose personal happiness seems to be closely tied to his country's military might, but he did have some concerns about the quick burial at sea and whether or not the DNA evidence was conclusive.
It's a very uplifting thing to realise that such precision can still be accomplished in this country. Last night, I was as proud as I have been of the US military in I don't know how long, and I remain so today. I toyed with the idea of opening the programme with military music. I felt so happy and proud about this. This was a 40-minute operation, get in, get it and get out. There are a lot of questions about it, burial at sea, the DNA supposedly takes a week to get, but we've got it already, the proof positive it was Osama bin Laden. It's a very, very, very, very important and positive day for the US military.
Limbaugh's admiration for the armed forces is obviously genuine, but while not wanting to rain on their parade (let alone the commander-in-chief's), diligent journalist that he is, he couldn't help but raise another issue that has been floated in some mainstream media outlets and especially by Hillary Clinton's news channel of choice, al-Jazeera, that Osama bin Laden is not the commander of al-Qaida anymore and that he has long since ceased to have much importance. He also felt compelled to draw attention to the stacks of newspaper articles that have suggested that Osama bin Laden was actually killed at Tora Bora and so has been dead for years, although Limbaugh doesn't necessarily subscribe to this theory himself.
Anyway, the bottom line is that, one way or another, it would appear that Osama bin Laden is probably dead now and even if President Obama and his administration had some hand in that, it's still a great day for America.