Obama and Panetta having a very public hissy fit at each other

In the days following the successful raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound that killed the terrorist leader, CIA Director Leon Panetta made the TV news channel rounds. He told the talking heads and their audiences that the administration had graphic, gruesome photographs of bin Laden’s corpse and that he was fairly certain the imagery would be released to prove he’d been killed.

"I just think it's important, they know we have it, to release it," Panetta said.

Nope, said President Obama in an interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes. The man who couldn’t roll a bowling ball down the frickin Interstate or throw a baseball in the Pacific Ocean used a sports analogy in punking the Chief Spook. “We don’t trot this stuff out as trophies,” he said. “We don’t need to spike the football.”

Oh, dear.

Panetta doesn’t seem to be taking this sitting down, though. Perhaps you remember this famous photograph, purporting to show Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton and Pentagon Brass watching a supposedly live video feed of the raid itself.

Yesterday, in an interview with PBS, Panetta told the network that there was no live video feed of the raid, after all.

“Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.

“We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound.” What, exactly, were Obama & Company watching in the photo above?

The more important question though is this: Why is Leon Panetta intentionally trying to embarrass the President of the United States?

The public disagreement over the release of photographs of the dead terrorist isn’t the first. In fact, Panetta has also copped to believing that “enhanced interrogation techniques” (that’s waterboarding) led intelligence services to information they used to locate bin Laden’s compound. If Senator Obama had gotten his way, President Obama would never have gotten the information he used to collect his trophy kill.

Extra Point: Still want that Pentagon post, Mr. CIA Director?

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GREAT NEWS: Bin Laden’s burial at sea wasn’t cool with Islamic law after all

The Associated Press has a report that says tossing Osama bin Laden’s body into the cold, dark oceans—where he could sleep with the fishes and help feed baby crabs—wasn’t halal after all.

I don’t care and share the NY Daily News’ sentiment:

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Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.

Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.

"The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration," said Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon.

A U.S. official said that the burial decision was made after concluding that it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. There also was speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants.

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Patterico says he doesn’t give a rats ass (NSFW language at the link) what they did with the body, in accordance with Islamic law or what. But he thinks it was a mistake to dump it so hastily, as it’s only going to give the birthers, truthers and black helicopterists more fuel for their wacko conspiracy theories.

I agree that flying over the Indian Ocean and shoving the corpse out the door is a great way to play fast and loose with the strict Muslim code and prevent a landside gravesite from becoming a frickin shrine.

I also agree with Patterico that at least a few photographs—ala Abu Graibe—showing soldiers yucking it up with the corpse would make for better rumor quashing.

I disagree with the notion that the unceremonious nature of the final disposal will enrage the fundamentalists and make them hate us even more. They already hate us, already wanted to kill us and have died trying.

Failing to dig a hole and point his bloodied, shattered skull at Mecca won’t change that.

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