The “Embarrassment” Of Killing Osama

I've spent a good chunk of this week arguing that Judicial Watch, the right-wing “good government” watchdog, is actually a collection of hackish partisans who use their watchdog status as a fig leaf for fabricating counterfactual anti-Obama narratives.

But I'm tired of doing that. So instead, I'll let Judicial Watch do it for me.

Here's Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton arguing, in all seriousness, that the Obama administration refuses to release the photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse because they are “embarrassed” by “our victory.”

FOIA is a disclosure statute, and the public has an affirmative right to know. We're not after legitimate secrets related to operational or intelligence matters. But the historical record of Osama bin Laden's death should be released to the American people as the law requires.

I get the feeling that the Obama administration doesn't want to release these photos because it is embarrassed both by our victory in killing bin Laden and the preposterous burial at sea.

As I've pointed out previously, the Obama administration has no problem releasing documents that the left thinks will embarrass the United States -- say, for example, Obama's selective release of documents disparaging “enhanced interrogation techniques” over the objections of his own national security officials. But when it comes to documents that show the heroism of our military? No deal.

Embarrassed...

He killed Osama bin Laden.

He instructed Leon Panetta to revamp and refocus the CIA's hunt for Bin Laden, ordered the high-risk military action that took out the Al Qaeda chief, monitored the assault from the White House situation room, delivered a national address announcing Bin Laden's death, thanked the military for their role in the successful operation, and thanked the intelligence community for hunting Bin Laden down.

And all this was done with an overriding sense of shame?

I have to wonder if Tom Fitton is even capable of recognizing embarrassment when he sees it. Only someone incapable of feeling any shame would make an argument this foolish.