![]() President Obama addressing the nation last night after U.S. special forces killed Osama bin Laden |
Did President Obama allude to the targeting of Osama bin Laden in remarks he made last week regarding the release of his long-form birth certificate?
Last Wednesday, the White House posted online a copy of Obama's long-form birth certificate from the state of Hawaii.
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Speaking to the news media about the release, Obama complained, "We do not have time for this kind of silliness."
He continued: "We've got better stuff to do. I've got better stuff to do. We've got big problems to solve. And I'm confident we can solve them, but we're going to have to focus on them – not on this."
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Obama apparently was referring to the economy and skyrocketing oil prices dominating the nation's political discourse.
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However, a timeline presented by the media today makes clear that when Obama spoke last week, he was leading secret meetings over the status of locating and going after bin Laden.
The president was just two days away from authorizing the raid that resulted in the terror chieftain's death yesterday.
The New York Times reported that on March 14, Obama held the first of five national security meetings during the past six weeks to go over plans for the operation after U.S. intelligence believed they had found bin Laden's compound.
On Friday, the president signed the formal order authorizing the raid.
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Already, some commentators are connecting bin Laden's death with the issue of Obama's eligibility, insisting that the major terror-war success should lay to rest any claims the president is not American.
Writing at CNN.com, former George W. Bush-aide David Frum remarked, "Now, stop questioning Obama's legitimacy."
"Here's hoping that we have at last seen the end of this ugly insinuation that there is something less than fully American about the black president with the exotic name," opined Frum.
"On Friday came the release of the long-form birth certificate that provided the final decisive refutation of the birther lie that the President Obama was born elsewhere than the United States."
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Continued Frum: "On Saturday at the White House Correspondents Dinner, the most visible proponent of that lie, the blowhard TV tycoon Donald Trump, was publicly ridiculed in front of an audience of 3,000 people, without a voice to excuse or defend him.
"And then late Sunday, the president told the nation of the execution of his order to shoot and kill bin Laden.
"After the events of the past 72 hours, those kinds of attacks should be finished now. It's a cleaner world without bin Laden soiling it. And American politics will be cleaner for the expunging of the malicious fantasy of the president's non-Americanness."
Similar sentiments were echoed in an editorial today in The Australian newspaper.
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"Having scotched the ludicrous charges against the authenticity of his Hawaiian birth, Obama is now the centre of a great U.S. celebration," contended the newspaper.
"His speech, as usual, had several audiences. One of the most important – and thus the invoking of Bush – were the hordes of centrist and independent voters who have deserted Obama in the past 18 months and who savaged the Democrats at the recent congressional elections.
"These are the essential voters for Obama's re-election, and he was welcoming them back to pappa in that short, brilliant speech," the newspaper stated.