A CIA task force is scrambling to exploit intelligence from the computers, thumb drives and other electronic media taken at Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on Sunday, racing against the clock as what remains …
Miscellany
Morning Must Reads: Damage Control
- The April jobs report is significantly better than feared: Non-farm payrolls swelled by 244,000 as the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.0%.
- The video of bin Laden’s burial at sea may be released.
- Al-Qaeda after bin Laden.
- He was plotting U.S. rail attacks.
Lunch Break: Michelle Obama Gets Down
And now, a slight change of pace. It’s been a good week so far for the Obamas. The President shellacked Donald Trump at the WH Correspondents Dinner, while Michelle Obama’s hair and dress rocked the house. Obama checked “Get bin Laden” off his to-do list for 2011. And Tuesday at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, Mrs. O showed that …
About the Photos
I’m torn between basic human curiosity, journalistic voyeurism…and my better angels, which tell me that any death photos of Osama bin Laden will make life more dangerous for the thousands of American soldiers and diplomats, as well as untold numbers of private citizens, both businesspeople and tourists, who spend time in iffy places overseas.
Dept. of Stretched Analogies: Supermarkets Aren’t Schools
I imagine most writers have made the mistake of falling in love with an analogy and stretching it way past the breaking point. A sportswriter I knew long ago went on for several paragraphs comparing a man’s face to the map of Florida. I know I’ve committed this felony plenty of times. In fact, Mickey Kaus once did me the bracing …
Morning Must Reads: Alternative
–Tension with Pakistan isn’t subsiding — “There’s no doubt [bin Laden] was protected by some in the ISI.” — but there’s no alternative to the relationship.
–Obama will visit Ground Zero today.
–Biden’s bipartisan deficit talks begin.
Enhanced Baloney
I am sitting here watching Congressman Peter King lie through his teeth on CNN about the role of torture in the capture and death of Osama bin Laden. King is insisting that the initial information about the Bin Laden couriers …
Morning Must Reads: Cost
- Pakistani ambassador denies complicity, chalks missing bin Laden up to “incompetence” or “overconfidence.”
- Panetta thinks if it wasn’t incompetence, it had to be complicity.
- Qualified defense of Pakistan begins on the Hill.
Ex-CIA Counterterror Chief: ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Led U.S. to bin Laden
A former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, who was investigated last year by the Justice Department for the destruction of videos showing senior al-Qaeda officials being interrogated, says the harsh questioning of terrorism …
Obama Pushed for ‘Fight Your Way Out’ Option in bin Laden Raid
A senior U.S. military official Monday credited President Obama for having a prominent role in pushing and shaping the plan to get Osama bin Laden. “In the final weeks and really months of this, his personal interest and …
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The Hazards of Punditry Cont.
I thought this column by Charles Krauthammer was a lazy piece of work last Friday, with “Bomber Boy”–as George W. Bush called him–flaying his dead horse of unipolarity:
CIA Chief: Pakistan Would Have Jeopardized bin Laden Operation
In his first interview since commanding the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, CIA chief Leon Panetta tells TIME that U.S. officials feared that Pakistan could have undermined the operation by leaking word to its targets. Long …