10 Ways the Right Is Spinning Bin Laden’s Death


Earlier today, the impossible seemed to happen when Rush Limbaugh suggested that President Barack Obama “single-handedly” devised the plan to successfully assassinate Osama Bin Laden. Though many in the media took Limbaugh seriously, he was actually being sarcastic. Here are 10 other ways that right-wing pundits and bloggers have tried to spin the Al Qaeda leader’s killing into a joke, a trifle, or even a triumph of conservatism:

1. American Spectator Senior Fellow Chris Horner: The death of Bin Laden is a blow to supporters of cap and trade. (In January, OBL expressed concern about climate change).


 

 

 

 

 

2. Human Events editor Jason Mattera: Remember how Michele Obama isn’t supposed to be patriotic?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  RedState blogger Streiff: Flaky liberals hate that bin Laden is dead. 

Presumably Code Pink will hold a “Take Back the Night” march some place to mourn his passing.

Bonus: Obama’s decision to use military force to take out Bin Laden exposes his “ambivalence” about military force.

The death of bin Laden is more likely to give impetus to Obama’s ambivalence about the concept of “victory” and his deep-seated hostility to the success of American military power and thereby give him the political cover he feels he needs to speed up troop withdrawals from those countries.

 

4. WorldNetDaily contributor Mychal Massie: Maybe Obama deserves to be assassinated, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.  Washington Times editorial page editor Brett Decker: For self-centered Obama, “everything is about him.”

He used the words “I,” “me” and “my” so many times that it was hard to count for such a quick message.

6.  Eric Bolling, host of Fox’s Follow the Money: Bush, not Obama, really deserves the credit. No wait—I forgot someone…



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Bryan Fischer, host of the American Family Association’s Focal Point radio show:

The death of Bin Laden is a “major PR problem for President Obama.” (Why? “You have just invited the entire Islamic world to focus all of their vitriol, all of their hatred, all of their animosity directly on you!”)

 

8. Atlas Shrugged contributor Pamela Geller: Her sources say that Al Qaeda is actually small peanuts compared to the terrorists who have already infiltrated the US government

Many of us already realize that the Muslim Brotherhood is the much more insidious threat than AQ. . .they are advising our senior leaders and have access to all levels of our government and national security apparatus.

9. Gateway Pundit contributor Jim Hoft: The discovery and killing of Bin Laden justify the use of torture.

 

10. J. Michael Waller, on Andrew Breitbart’s website, Big Peace: Show us the death certificate!

The free world, particularly the United States, has a right to make sure that Osama Bin Laden is really dead. 

 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate