Thursday:
9:30 AM The President leaves the White House
10:35 AM Arrives in New York
** Undisclosed **
1:25 PM Participates in a wreath laying ceremony
1:45 PM Meets with 9/11 family members
3:10 PM Leaves New York
4:15 PM Arrives back at the White House
6:00 PM With First Lady Michelle Obama hosts a Cinco de Mayo reception and delivers remarks
New York Times (July, 2009): …when the library for George W. Bush opens in 2013 on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, visitors will most likely get to see one of his most treasured items: Saddam Hussein’s pistol.
The gun was found in the spider hole where the Iraqi leader was captured in December 2003 by Delta Force soldiers, four of whom later presented the pistol to Mr. Bush. Among the thousands of gifts Mr. Bush received as president, the gun became a favorite….
….For nearly five years, Mr. Bush kept the mounted, glass-encased pistol in the Oval Office or a study, showing it with pride, especially to military officials….
Mr. Bush also [kept] a brick from the Iraq safe house where the Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed by an American air strike in 2006.
…Douglas Brinkley, an author and history professor at Rice University, said the pistol opened a psychological window into Mr. Bush’s view of his presidency. “It represents this Texas notion of the white hats taking out the black hats and keeping the trophy,” Mr. Brinkley said. “It’s a True West magazine kind of pulp western mentality….”
****
President Obama on deciding against the release of post-mortem photos of Osama Bin Laden: “…. that’s not who we are. We don’t trot this stuff out as trophies.”
(Thank you Carol)
Philip Gourevitch (New Yorker): ….The astonishing raid - long and secretively planned, stealthily launched, boldly and bravely and absolutely perfectly executed - was evidence of an American capability and purpose that we have longed to feel amid all the disappointments of the past decade of war.
Under Obama’s command, the raid on bin Laden … projected a cool and fearless capability. The perfect secrecy of the operation was part of its inspiring style - the total control, even the pitch-perfect relentlessness of Obama’s speech announcing the kill. Publishing trophy photographs is antithetical to that; it’s what our enemies do.
The main argument for releasing a photograph of the punctured scalp of our enemy is that it will provide proof that bin Laden really is dead. In other words, seeing is believing. But does anyone really believe that any more? Believing is believing. People who want, or need, to believe that bin Laden wasn’t shot dead will have no difficulty believing that a picture of his cadaver is a fake, a simple propaganda trick. The release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate didn’t put an end to birtherism, so why would the release of bin Laden’s autopsy video put an end to deatherism?…
At Abu Ghraib, and in far too many theatres of our post-9/11 wars, we compounded the wound that bin Laden and Al Qaeda inflicted on us ten-years ago, with self-inflicted wounds, time and again abandoning our own best principles in the name of defending them. We stooped to fighting terror with terror, and confronting barbarism with barbarism. The assassination of bin Laden allows us to begin turning the page - but surely not if that page is printed with an official trophy photograph of his blasted head.
Full article here
President Barack Obama meets with Britain’s Prince Charles in the Oval Office, May 4
I’ll behave :???:
White House.gov WH Tumblr OFA The People’s View Smartypants Greg Sargent Steve Benen
|
