The the White House Correspondents’ dinner, Obama roasts himself, his birth certificate, Trump, Michelle, Biden, and Hollywood. Very funny.
Here’s the roast from Seth Meyers — Obama was funnier! But you should at least watch when Meyers skewers Trump (at 11:55) — the best part is when the camera shows Trump in the audience, definitely not laughing.
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The best part is the video making fun of Obama’s use of a teleprompter, showing outtakes of him really messing up his lines. At least the man can make fun of himself.
I saw the Trump roast before I came here and was hoping you’d have it, but it actually starts at 9:30 on your video (yeah I had to watch again). I’ve got one thing to say about Trump, Its all fun and games till someone else gets the microphone ey Donald. Hilarious. I’ll give him alittle slack because it looked like he was chuckling when Obama got to the firing Gary Busey part, which will be a classic i think.
Headline from NPR “OBAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD, OFFICIALS SAY” I copy/pasted it.
“Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye”
Who is Seth Meyer, anyway? Am I that out of touch with American comedy? Do I need to get my comedy from someone other than The Daily Show and Colbert Report? Someone could have given him a lesson in how to read without sounding like he’s reading, couldn’t they? ;>D
IK: Feel free to delete this message after you see it.
But I think this post needs re-titling. It looks like it could refer to the speech Obama gave last night about bin Laden, not the humorous speech he gave night before last.
Oh, and I hope you post something about last night’s speech. I’ld love to see what some of the usual commentators have to say. 😉
BTN: I also read it as “Osama” until I read under the comments section. So many people were trying to get NPR to change the headline from “Obama” to “Osama”
Re: FoxNews.com. I went there to see what was being said under comments. People were praising our country and our administration.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/05/02/transcript-obama-announces-killing-bin-laden/#comment
Must not be the comments on this article! 😉 Nation is even worse as usual.
My feeling about the Osama speech (reading the transcript) was that it was OK, but I felt like he was trying to take too much credit. Or, perhaps more accurately, trying too hard to insert himself into the narrative.
It wasn’t as over the top as some of my right wing enthusiast friends made it out to be, but it was still a little…odd.
On an ironic note, as I was preparing for work this morning something humorous suddenly hit me: the same people who demanded that Obama stop giving Bush “credit” for the problems we have today would no doubt be upset that he wasn’t giving Bush enough credit for bringing down Osama.
Needless to say, reading the Nation comments didn’t let me down! How dare he not recognize that where we are today is a result of many players over many years!!!! In this case, anyway. In the case of economic devasation OBAMA ACTED ALONE!
Flipping through the coverage last night before the president’s speech, the funniest thing I saw was Geraldo on Fox discussing how they heard osama get killed proudly announced, “we don’t care how it happened, the great thing is that Obama is dead!” (or close to that if someone can find the tape), then he looked to the side and said, “what did I say?” And what is this with Fox using Usama instead of Osama?
IL-08 yes I did hear that slip from Geraldo, which he quickly redressed and moved on.
1032 – on your feelings about Obama trying to insert himself too much, I think he was justified. Sending drones into the outland regions of Pakistan is one thing, but a sizeable raiding party not far from their capital is quite another. The risks were enormous and only he could have authorized it. Imagine if they had failed, fallen into a trap and all the SF guys killed and OBL came on the air today showing the body or a live serviceman and cutting off his head. It would have been an utter and complete failure and he would have rightly received full blame. So I disagree and think the President deserves full credit for making the hard choice. Alot of credit is deserved by many and no appreciation should be spared, but the Commander in Chief is where the buck stops.
PSGT is 100% right on this. Clearly there were a lot of people involved in finding Bin Laden, planning the raid, etc. but the level of risk and the situation makes any decision on how to proceed a Presidential level call. Obama made the call, so he gets the credit and as PSGT says, he would also rightly have gotten the full blame if it failed.
Certainly, but that wasn’t really what I was trying to say. It wasn’t ‘he did do a lot’ or ‘he didn’t do a lot’, it was more that I felt like it wasn’t necessary in the speech to take credit.
The speech should have been (and was for the most part) about the elimination of someone we have been hunting for years and us as a nation. But there were parts like this:
“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad Pakistan.”
That, were I writing the speech, would have gone like this:
“Today, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad Pakistan.”
I feel like it is not only a better avenue of discourse for the nation, but that it also better appeals to those who will naturally bristle at the President seeming to take credit for things.
But, that’s just one man’s opinion. It is possible they were trying to avoid being painted as anti-war weaklings being drug along by military intelligence. Who knows.
Hey there, long time reader here, but first time poster.
I was just wondering about something in regards to how the information on bin Laden was collected, and I wanted to get the opinions of the people on this board.
How will people who are pro-Gitmo and torture and severe interrogation techniques use this to support their cause? It’s clear that the information came from Gitmo detainees, but was it because we were able to extract the information via torture, or did it come after somewhat more humane conditions were imposed on the prisoners?
“It’s clear that the information came from Gitmo detainees…”
Huh? Where did you hear that? (Disclaimer: I haven’t yet read or watched the President’s speech.) According to this article, the intelligence came from phone taps.
Michael, here’s the link where apparently information from Gitmo detainees started a lot of the investigation:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/02reconstruct-capture-osama-bin-laden.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
It starts in the 5th paragraph.
“As Obama administration officials described it, the real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.
Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.”
We may not know for a while if it came from torture or humane methods of interrogation. I suppose it could go either way.
With regards to gitmo, the location of wherever these detainees were doesn’t really matter if the method of interrogation doesn’t involve torture. They could have been held in my backyard (I don’t live in Cuba, just to clarify) and they still could have provided the intelligence.
Part of me wants to say that torture wasn’t used, since this operation appears to be the result of six or seven months (I believe Obama said last August?) of preparation, and therefore not the last-minute-torture-driven confession ala 24 that severe interrogation has sometimes been credited with providing.
With regard to Obama taking credit, it is his watch, so he gets the credit for it. Some will definitely try to credit Bush, but I think this is silly because of how far removed we are from his presidency at this point. I would be shocked if Osama had been in that location since before 2008. I’m just waiting for Trump to take credit for finding Obama’s birth certificate and Osama’s mansion in the same week.
To turn the discussion in yet another direction… did anyone have thoughts about the celebrations taking place afterward? I figured from the outset that people would take to the streets, but am I wrong to wish that the demonstrations had been a bit more… somber? Terrible though he was, celebrating someone’s death just seems… odd. Had he been captured I would have felt more comfortable with the jubilant atmosphere I guess.
ThatGuy: While I understand the reasons for the street celebrations (a sense of accomplishment despite our struggles with the economy at home, the sense of closure, and for some justice while for others revenge), I too found the street demonstrations… gauche.
Celebrating someone’s death, even though that death appears well deserved and is symbolic of much more, is pretty abhorrent. Because the revelers reasons for celebrating were clearly an admixture of many motives, I didn’t find those celebrations completely abhorrent, which is why I used the word gauche.
I really wish that it had been possible to capture Bin Laden and bring him to trial in an international court. He committed crimes against more than the US, and celebrating the justice done from him receiving an international court’s punishment would have been worthy of jubilation for me.
(BTW, still sick. I hope that made sense.)
Thatguy raises an interesting question. I’m not surprised that noisy celebratory gatherings arose spontaneously – especially in New York. Interestingly enough, a lot of the folks I saw were quite young – high school age – meaning they might have been 8 or 9 or 10 at the time of 9/11. Very few were what I could call “older.” It could be the tv cameras were acting as attractants to the younger folks so, hence, I wasn’t seeing a true sampling of the revelers, but I have a hunch that it was mostly younger folks. I understand why they are partying in the street, though I’m saddened that we can rise to celebrate the death of another human instead of viewing it as the somber, sad act that it truly is.
I think that a lot of Americans think this is the end of something when, in reality, it is just one more step down the road of confrontation between terrorist elements in the Moslem world and the developed western world. In many respects, bin Laden’s power had been greatly diminished while loosely related, but mostly independent branches of al-Qaida have sprung up in a number of countries and are carrying out their own terrorist agendas.
So, to me, I’m not upset that bin Laden is dead – would have liked to see him captured, as well, and brought to justice the modern American way, but eh? I’m a little concerned that we sent military personnel into a sovereign country (perhaps with their permission or perhaps not), with the intent of killing a man.
I think there are much larger issues facing the world than al-Qaida. The seeds that bin Laden and his brethren planted have germinated, taken root, and all too many have grown to be self-supporting, terror organizations.
Re: torture/gitmo/etc., I feel similarly to THATGUY. Condoning the use of torture is an incredibly slippery slope. I still maintain that in virtually all cases torture is only consistently productive if the torturer already knows what the victim knows, which makes it useless on the whole, in addition to being morally abhorrent.
Indeed, this is already being used to justify the use of torture and indefinite detainment, even though there has been no indication that either of them produced meaningful results:
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/02/detainee-interrogations-key-to-killing-osama-bin-laden/
Re: celebrations, I felt similarly. Frankly, I did a small double take because I felt like I was looking at anti-American celebration pictures from the Middle East.
TENTHIRTYTWO,
Was Obama taking credit.. or responsibility?
To me, it sounded like the latter.
I’ll bet he would have taken ‘it’ if the mission had failed.
He’s just that kind of person.
I’m not sure of the distinction you are drawing, so I don’t know how to answer your question. If the implication is that, even if things went wrong he would have owned up to it, then again that wasn’t my point. It wasn’t that he was or was not responsible.
Nolabill, thanks for the link. That is quite thought-provoking. I remain firmly anti-torture (that seems like a no-brainer), because so many interrogation experts have spoken out about how it doesn’t work. I’m curious how this single data point fits into the picture.
Regarding the celebrations, I was talking with a friend about how my Facebook friends had a WIDE range of reactions, from the “USA…hell yeah!” to the more reflective and somber “It’s sad that we had to respond to violence with violence.” One of my friends takes the cake, though. We were discussing this article a couple weeks ago. His question today was, assuming that author is correct and Hell doesn’t exist, “How many Christians are comfortable with the thought that Bin Laden might be in Heaven?” I’m not a Christian, so I have no stake in the argument.
I was listening to the Phillies/Met game at the top of the ninth when the USA chant started to spread around the stadium. Mets were up at the time so the Phils were in the field, absolutely clueless. I happened to be listening to the Mets radio announcer. “The game just is nothing now. All of us in New York have connections to 9/11.” Notice they weren’t heralding the death of Bin Laden, but celebrating the country they live in and resolution to the attack on 9/11. The game went for 14 innings with the announcers from New York not being able to concentrate. It was a wonderful display of patriotism.
Amen Ebdoug – I think what you’ve said is what most people are feeling. Glad OBL is gone, but more then that its a not so much celebrating for America putting him down, but of America overcoming. As i’m prone to do, I’ll quote another great big screen American Rocky, in his last film; “Its not about how hard you can hit, It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward!”
So much good discussion!
My initial reaction was muted. I’ve been busy but when I finally watched Obama’s announcement from last night, I thought it was appropriate. I thought what Obama was trying to do was not take credit personally, but to make it clear that it was not Pakistan who was responsible (they would be the first target of angry reprisals from Al Qaeda, especially if they were directly involved in bin Laden’s death).
Yes, the celebrations seemed a bit morbid, but I can understand why people were celebrating. It wasn’t that bin Laden was dead, but that it was our first unequivocal victory in the fight against the 9/11 terrorists.
And according to the US military, they did ask bin Laden to surrender, but he refused.
This is an interesting read, about the decision: http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/02/inside-the-situation-room-weve-idd-geronimo/
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
I just don’t think Obama sees ANY death as something for which anyone should “take credit”. It’s a grave responsibility… literally.