Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart Wonders Why The Right Doesn't Give Obama Any Credit

David Taintor | May 9, 2012, 9:52AM

Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart on Tuesday talked about "cognitive dissonance" -- when two ideas exist in one's head like two rats fighting in a bag. Some people are able to "square that circle," Stewart said.

"Republicans, like all Americans, wanted very much to see Osama bin Laden dead," he said. "At the same, time they believed Barack Obama is incapable of doing anything right." Cue conservative politicians and pundits bemoaning President Obama's "victory lap" on the first anniversary of bin Laden's death.

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Barack Obama

Team Obama Stays On Offense In Bin Laden Spat

Sahil Kapur | May 6, 2012, 2:05PM

The Obama re-election campaign doesn't appear fazed by attacks from the right about "politicizing" the killing of Osama bin Laden, and on Sunday remained on offense over what it said was one of the president's accomplishments.

"The president hasn't been spiking the ball," said President Obama's senior campaign adviser David Axelrod on ABC's This Week. "This was the one-year anniversary. It's part of his record. And it's certainly a legitimate part of his record to talk about." Axelrod said Obama followed through with his promise that catching the al-Qaeda leader would be a top priority. "And then he ordered a mission that was -- was, frankly, risky, dangerous," he said. "Bob Gates said it was one of the most courageous, one of the gutsiest decisions he's ever seen a president make. And it turned out successfully."

Axelrod was responding to an outside conservative group's ad -- hailed by Karl Rove and widely discussed in the conservative blogosphere -- that utilizes ominous music to sharply attack Obama for taking credit for the killing of Bin Laden on the first anniversary last week. "Heroes don't seek credit," the ad said. "Heroes don't politicize their acts of valor."

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Barack Obama

Obama: Bin Laden Raid Was 'Longest 40 Minutes Of My Life'

David Taintor | May 3, 2012, 9:56AM

NBC's Brian Williams interviews President Obama

Reflecting on the iconic Situation Room photo during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, President Obama said it was the "longest 40 minutes of my life."

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Osama Bin Laden

The Hunt For Bin Laden: What Exactly Did Obama Do?

Sahil Kapur and Eric Lach | May 3, 2012, 6:13AM

Consider the following scenario: U.S. intelligence gets a tip about the whereabouts of a senior Al Qaeda figure inside Pakistan. Plans are drawn up to fly into the airspace of an uneasy ally. Elite U.S. forces are readied. The administration is asked for the go-ahead.

In 2005, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly called off such a mission, despite the fact that intelligence officials had "unusually high confidence" about the whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's then-second-in-command. According to a 2007 New York Times report revealing the aborted raid, Rumsfeld was concerned about both the size of the operation -- which grew to include several hundred military personnel and CIA operatives -- and the potential reaction from the Pakistani government.

In 2011, President Obama was faced with a similar decision that obviously ended differently.

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Osama Bin Laden

Why The "War Crimes" Charge Against Obama Will Go Nowhere

Thomas Lane | July 19, 2011, 5:50AM

Barack Obama

On Monday Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that a Spanish lawyer named Daniel Fiol has petitioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) with a complaint against the U.S. president.

The reason? Fiol holds that Obama violated the Geneva Convention when he ordered the operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

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Barack Obama

Bin Laden Bump Gone, Economic Pessimism Drags Down Obama's Approval Rating

Jon Terbush | June 7, 2011, 9:57AM

Barack Obama

One month after Osama bin Laden's death gave a big boost to President Obama's approval rating, an ABC News/ Washington Post poll released Tuesday finds that that spike has all but evaporated, as Americans' deep concerns about the struggling economy have significantly dragged down the President's job rating.

In addition, Obama received his worst marks ever on his handling of the economy and the federal deficit. As a result, his standing has slipped so much that he's now in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney in a theoretical test of the 2012 election.

As a whole, the survey shows broad discontent with the pace of the economic recovery, and it serves as a reminder that the economy's health will be a major factor heading into next year's elections.

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Barack Obama

Obama Appeals To 'Hope' Not 'Hate' In Unveiling Shift In Middle East Policy

Susan Crabtree | May 19, 2011, 2:10PM

President Barack Obama

President Obama attempted to reset relations with the Arab world Thursday in a comprehensive speech that positioned the United States and its values squarely behind the democratic uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa and promised aid to help promote economic growth and stability across the region.

"Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist," Obama said during a 45-minute speech at the State Department.

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Pakistan

Kerry: Pakistan And U.S. Are At A Critical Crossroads

Susan Crabtree | May 17, 2011, 1:35PM

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), fresh from a trip to Pakistan aimed at repairing deeply frayed relations with the United States, said Tuesday the two nations are at a critical crossroads and cautioned against either side taking precipitous action.

Kerry spent the weekend meeting with Pakistani officials and trying to determine steps that would assuage the deep distrust between the two nations after the discovery of Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan and his subsequent killing in a covert operation by a Navy SEALs team.

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Osama Bin Laden

U.S. Officials Interviewed OBL's Wives, White House Confirms

Susan Crabtree | May 13, 2011, 2:45PM

Osama Bin Laden

The White House confirmed Friday that Pakistan has allowed U.S. officials to interview three of Osama bin Laden's wives, all of whom were living with him at his Abbottabad compound before a Navy SEAL team stormed it and killed bin Laden nearly two weeks ago.

In the aftermath of the U.S. raid on the hideaway, U.S. lawmakers and officials have accused at least some elements of the Pakistani government of helping harbor bin Laden and have been watching Pakistan's reaction to his killing closely. The wives, one of whom was injured during the raid, were taken into custody by Pakistani security forces after the SEALs left the compound.

White House spokesman Jay Carney was tight-lipped about the interrogation aside from confirming that it had occurred. He would not say who questioned the women or whether they cooperated.

"I can't characterize the interaction except to say that we have had access," Carney said, "And we obviously appreciate the cooperation we've received from the Pakistani government."

The White House and the Pentagon have not said exactly when this week U.S. officials questioned the wives. The Pakistani Taliban on Friday took credit for twin suicide bombings that killed at least 80 people outside a paramilitary training center in Shabqadar, Pakistan earlier in the day. A Taliban spokesman said the explosions were in retaliation for the killing of bin Laden.

Carney said the U.S. government remains in a "state of high vigilance" since the raid.

"We take very seriously the fact that while al Qaeda is weakened, it is not dead," Carney said.

President Obama plans to deliver a major speech on the events in the Middle East and North Africa and U.S. Policy in the region Thursday at the State Department.

From Carney's descriptions, the speech will be "fairly sweeping and comprehensive" focused on the democratic uprisings in the region that have taken place since January and how the U.S. has responded to the upheaval.

"[The President] has always viewed the future of the region through the prism of democratization and the yearning of the people...in the region for greater political freedom, participation in their government, desire for responsive governments that address their grievances," Carney said. "I'm sure he will call as he has in the past on the governments in the region to respond to those demands through peaceful political dialogue."

Obama plans to focus on the irony he sees in some leaders' violent crackdowns in the name of stability when those brutal actions are only leading to great instability in the country and the region, Carney told reporters.

At one point during the press briefing, Carney was asked whether he had information about Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's whereabouts and reports that he was no longer in Tripoli and is likely injured.

"Nothing I can share," Carney replied.

John McCain

McCain Denounces Torture: 'The Very Idea Of America' Is At Stake (VIDEO)

Jillian Rayfield | May 12, 2011, 11:39AM

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took to the Senate floor Thursday to condemn waterboarding and other torture techniques, saying that the debate over these techniques is ultimately "about morality. What is at stake here it the very idea of America."

"The America," he continued, "whose values have inspired the world and instilled in the hearts of its citizens the certainty that no matter how hard we fight, no matter how dangerous our adversary, in the course of vanquishing our enemies we do not compromise our deepest vlaues."

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War On Terror

Congress Poised To Give President Power To Continue GWOT Indefinitely

Brian Beutler | May 11, 2011, 1:23PM

House progressives are trying to draw attention to language Republicans have included in an annual must-pass defense bill, which they say will dramatically expand Presidential power in the war on terrorism. The pushback comes just over a week after U.S. forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and reignites one of the most controversial disputes the country's faced over the past decade. At stake is the question of whether Congress will allow the war on terrorism to continue indefinitely, or let it slowly dissipate as the years since September 11, 2001 pass.

The origin of the language in the defense bill dates back to March, when President Obama signed an executive order -- derided by some of his closest allies -- that effectively formalized an indefinite detention system at Guantanamo.

In response, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) and his colleagues unveiled legislation intended to codify the intent of that executive order, and update the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force -- the legal underpinning off the war on terrorism.

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Pakistan

Feinstein Wants Answers About What Pakistani Officials Knew About OBL

Susan Crabtree | May 10, 2011, 4:00PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) isn't relying on U.S. intelligence officials alone to find out whether the Pakistani government was helping harbor Osama bin Laden.

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, told TPM she has "her own people looking into it" and will hold closed-door classified hearings on the increasingly frayed relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan soon.

Despite her deep concerns about what the Pakistani government knew about bin Laden's compound before a U.S. assault team raided it and killed the notorious al Qaeda leader, Feinstein tempered remarks Monday in which she questioned continuing to send billions of dollars in humanitarian and military aid to the country and said the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan "makes less and less sense."

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Texas

TX Teacher Who Accused Girl Of Grieving Over Bin Laden Not Returning To Work

Evan McMorris-Santoro and Melissa Jeltsen | May 9, 2011, 4:17PM

The Texas high school teacher who allegedly told a Muslim girl in his ninth grade algebra class that "I bet that you're grieving" over the death of Osama bin Laden will not be returning to work, a school spokesperson tells TPM.

The teacher was suspended last week after the girl complained about his comments to her, which came the day after bin Laden was killed by American forces in Pakistan. The girl's name has been kept out of reporting on the case, and a spokesperson for the Clear Creek Independent School District would not immediately release the name of the teacher to TPM.

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Pakistan

White House to Pakistan: 'No Apologies' for OBL Raid

Susan Crabtree | May 9, 2011, 3:10PM

White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Obama stands by his decision to order a covert assault-team raid to cross into a Pakistani city and kill Osama bin Laden without telling Pakistani officials.

"We obviously take statements and concerns of the Pakistani government very seriously," Carney told reporters at a briefing. "We also do not apologize for the actions that we took. [The President] said back in the [2008] campaign...if this is the only way we can do it, to do it unilaterally, he would take that chance and we did it. It is beyond a doubt in his mind, that he had the right and the imperative to do it."

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Afghanistan

Bipartisan Group Urges Obama To Use OBL Raid As Example And End War In Afghanistan

Susan Crabtree | May 9, 2011, 12:51PM

A bipartisan group of eight members of Congress are calling on the Obama administration to abandon the nation-building effort in Afghanistan in favor of a scaled-down mission focused primarily on quashing al Qaeda in the wake of the targeted special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Reps. Peter Welch (D-VT) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who chairs the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, want the Obama administration to view the successful mission against bin Laden as a model for U.S. counter-terrorism strategy as a whole. Welch, Chaffetz and a group of three Democrats and three Republicans sent Obama a letter calling for the end of the war in Afghanistan and a shift to more surgical, strategic operations to combat worldwide terrorism.

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60 Minutes

Obama: Bin Laden Had A 'Support Network' Inside Pakistan (VIDEO)

Jon Terbush | May 9, 2011, 9:07AM

Osama bin Laden had assistance from a support network established within Pakistan, President Obama said in an in-depth interview with CBS 60 Minutes on Sunday raising questions about the trustworthiness of one of America's key anti-terror allies in the region.

In a more than 30 minute interview, Obama said the conspicuousness of bin Laden's Pakistan safe house raised questions about how much was known, and by whom, within Pakistan. And, Obama said, both the U.S. and Pakistan had some investigating to do to root out the source.

"We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan," Obama said. "But we don't know who or what that support network was."

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Osama Bin Laden

Bush Aide: Obama Has 'Pounded His Chest' Over Bin Laden

Jon Terbush | May 7, 2011, 3:32PM

President Obama has 'pounded his chest' too much and taken too much pride in the success of the mission to take out Osama bin Laden, according to, of all people, George W. Bush's former Chief of Staff, Andrew Card.

In an interview with German newspaper Der Spiegel, Card said that Obama has "pounded his chest" too much over the death of Osama bin Laden, particularly by going to Ground Zero earlier this week, the site of the 9/11 attacks.

"I think he has pounded his chest a little too much," Card said. "He can take pride in it, but he does not need to show it so much."

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Osama Bin Laden

Osama At Home: Pentagon Releases Video Seized At Bin Laden Compound

Evan McMorris-Santoro | May 7, 2011, 1:46PM

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden colored his beard black before he made the video tapes broadcast across the world that became his trademark. He also liked to watch himself on TV.

Those are two takeaways from a series of bin Laden "home movies" seized by intelligence officials during the May 1 raid that left the terrorist leader dead at the hands of a Navy SEAL team. The Pentagon released copies of the videos to the public on Saturday, following a closed briefing to reporters.

In the tapes, bin Laden is seen with a dark beard recording the kind of one man testimonials that were a mainstay of his time at the head of Al Qaeda. One fascinating tape shows the terrorist leader gray-bearded and sitting on the floor of his Abbottabad compound, watching himself on satellite TV.

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Osama Bin Laden

Obama Thanks SEAL Team Who Killed OBL For 'Job Well Done'

Susan Crabtree | May 6, 2011, 4:02PM

President Barack Obama at Fort Campbell, Ky.

President Obama flew to Fort Campbell, Ky., Friday to personally congratulate the special operations team responsible for the killing of Osama bin Laden, telling them and the rest of the troops on the base "job well done."

Vice President Joe Biden joined Obama in privately thanking the Navy SEAL team just hours after bin Laden's terror network al Qaeda confirmed the death of their leader and vowed to avenge it and retaliate against Americans.

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Osama Bin Laden

John Yoo: Obama Afraid To Capture Bin Laden (VIDEO)

Evan McMorris-Santoro | May 6, 2011, 1:17PM

John Yoo

John Yoo says President Obama is too afraid of the politics of Guantanamo Bay to capture and interrogate terrorists.

The former George W. Bush administration lawyer, Yoo wrote the infamous torture memos used to justify the "enhanced interrogation techniques" that were a central legacy of Bush's Global War On Terror. He now says that the killing of Osama bin Laden will go down in history as one of President Obama's biggest national security fails.

Yoo told CNN on Thursday night that the special forces team sent to kill bin Laden should have instead taken him alive and kept him as a source of future intelligence. Failing to do that, Yoo says, cost the U.S. a valuable asset. That was a mistake, Yoo says.

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Barack Obama

Obama Will Meet With Troops Responsible For OBL Raid

Susan Crabtree | May 6, 2011, 12:07PM

President Barack Obama will meet Friday afternoon with several members of the military assault team responsible for conducting the raid on the Abbottabad compound and killing Osama bin Laden.

White House press secretary Jay Carney confirmed Friday morning that the President plans to spend some time this afternoon with "special operators" involved in the operation.

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Pakistan

Sen. Carl Levin: Pakistan Had To Know Osama Bin Laden Was There

Benjy Sarlin | May 6, 2011, 11:17AM

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)

Politicians across the political spectrum have been taking digs at Pakistan in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death in that country, but Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) offered up perhaps the toughest assessment yet from a senior lawmaker on Thursday.

In an interview with ABC News, Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was opening up an investigation into whether elements of Pakistan's government had foreknowledge of bin Laden's location.

"I think at high levels, high levels being the intelligence service, at high levels they knew it," Levin said. "I can't prove it. I just think it's counterintuitive not to."

The Senator tied the issue to a review of billions of dollar in economic and military aid to Pakistan.

"Some of it is in our interest. Some of it seems to be, is not clearly in our interest, and that's why the questions that we are asking the Pakistan government to answer need to be answered," Levin said.

Tim Pawlenty

2012 GOP Rivals Slam Obama In First Debate

Susan Crabtree | May 6, 2011, 9:01AM

The biggest boon for the five Republican presidential candidates who showed up in South Carolina for the first debate of the GOP 2012 race Thursday night may have been simply allowing viewers to put a name to a face.

The GOP field is still shaking out, and the debate was perhaps less notable for who was in attendance -- Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, and Ron Paul -- than for who wasn't -- Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Mike Huckabee.

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Canada

Left-Wing Canadian Politician Questions Osama Bin Laden Photos, Party Backs Off

Eric Kleefeld | May 5, 2011, 2:14PM

Thomas Mulcair, Deputy Leader of Canada's New Democratic Party

In a peculiar epilogue to TPM's coverage of the Canadian election this week -- in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party won his first outright majority of seats, and the left-wing New Democratic Party overtook the more moderate Liberal Party to become the main left-leaning party for the first time ever -- the NDP has gotten off to a rough start as an opposition party, in its handling of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The party's Deputy Leader, Thomas Mulcair, publicly expressed doubt that photos of bin Laden's body actually exist, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports. "I don't think, from what I've heard, that those pictures exist and if they do I'll leave that up to the American military," Mulcair said in an interview. "If they've got pictures of a cadaver then there's probably more going on than we suspect in what happened there."

As the CBC's report points out, Mulcair also questioned the legality of the killing:

Mulcair also said the killing requires "a full analysis" on whether it was self-defence or a direct killing because "that has to do with American law and international law as well."

"I think that if the Americans have taken pictures in that circumstance, it won't be able to prove very much as to whether Mr. [bin Laden] was holding a weapon," he said.

The NDP quickly distanced itself from Mulcair's comments, with the party's parliamentary Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar -- the person who would become Foreign Minister if the party were to win an election -- releasing a statement. "We have no reason to doubt the veracity of President Obama's statement," said Dewar. "As (NDP leader) Jack Layton said the other day, we are happy the U.S. tracked down Osama bin Laden."

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Osama Bin Laden

Senators Fall For Fake Bin Laden Death Photo

Susan Crabtree and Eric Lach | May 4, 2011, 6:40PM

Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Scott Brown (R-MA)

Once President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces on Sunday, it didn't take long for fake photographs of the terrorist leader's corpse to start circulating. Websites and newspapers fell for them. And so did, apparently, U.S. senators.

Three senators who claimed to have seen a photograph of bin Laden's post-mortem are now backtracking, or flat out admitting they were duped.

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Barack Obama

White House: We Won't Release Any More Operational Details About OBL Killing

Susan Crabtree | May 4, 2011, 4:55PM

After two days of administration officials offering up conflicting details and accounts of the intense U.S. assault-team raid on Osama bin Laden's compound and his subsequent killing, the White House has completely shut down press attempts to get a full accounting of what transpired.

White House spokesman Jay Carney Wednesday referred all questions about operational aspects of the mission to the Defense Department, even refusing to say who, if anyone, was shooting back at the Navy Seals during the "firefight" that Carney and other administration officials earlier in the week has said took place during the 40-minute raid Sunday night.

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Sarah Palin

Palin: Obama 'Pussy-Footing' By Not Releasing Photo Of Dead Bin Laden

Brian Beutler | May 4, 2011, 2:47PM

Sarah Palin

Just three days after the world learned President Obama ordered a daring special operations mission resulting in the death of Osama bin Laden, Sarah Palin has come around to claim he's "pussy-footing around" -- specifically by not immediately releasing photos of the deceased al Qaeda leader. To underscore the irony, Palin claims the pictures should be released "as warning to others seeking America's destruction" -- one day after numerous reports had her moving in a more pragmatic direction on foreign policy.

Palin took to Twitter, one of her go-to modes of communications, moments after news broke that Obama would not release the bin Laden photos.

"Show photo as warning to others seeking America's destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama;it's part of the mission," she said.

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Navy Seals

Sen. Ayotte: I've Seen A Photo Of Slain Bin Laden

Susan Crabtree | May 4, 2011, 2:16PM

US Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)

Update at 3:47 p.m.: Sen. Saxby Chambliss' office says he didn't show Ayotte the photo and he has not seen it himself.

Amid reports that the White House will not release a photo of a slain Osama bin Laden, a photo of bin Laden is circulating among some senators.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) tells TPM another senator showed her a photo of a deceased bin Laden with the understanding that it was an authentic photo the Navy Seals took of him after he was killed.

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Osama Bin Laden

House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers: Releasing Bin Laden Photo Is A Dangerously Bad Idea

Benjy Sarlin | May 4, 2011, 12:48PM

Osama bin Laden

A key Republican lawmaker has come out strongly against releasing photos of Osama BIn Laden's bullet-riddled corpse, adding an influential voice to the mix as the White House formulates its plan on the issue.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) warned in a statement that releasing the gruesome images of Bin Laden would not only fail to quell conspiracy theories about whether the Al Qaeda leader is still alive, but was antithetical to American values and could lead to blowback in the Muslim world.

"I don't want to make the job of our troops serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan any harder than it already is," Rogers said. "The risks of release outweigh the benefits. Conspiracy theorists around the world will just claim the photos are doctored anyway, and there is a real risk that releasing the photos will only serve to inflame public opinion in the Middle East. "

Rogers also worried that the grotesque display would reflect poorly on America's honor.

"Imagine how the American people would react if Al Qaida killed one of our troops or military leaders, and put photos of the body on the internet," he said. "Osama bin Laden is not a trophy - he is dead and let's now focus on continuing the fight until Al Qaida has been eliminated."