Open Thread: WH Bin Laden Story Contradicted

August 29th, 2012 9:37 AM

A book that's going to cause a lot of controversy is "No Easy Day," a first-hand account by one of the Navy SEALs who was part of the team that killed Osama bin Laden.

The Associated Press got an early copy of the book and reported that the author, Matt Bissonnette, says that the terrorist leader was killed when he looked out the window and was already dead when they entered the compound bin Laden was living in at the time. This is in direct contradiction to Obama Administration accounts of his death.

The book also has some damaging paragraphs about gaffe-prone vice president Joe Biden, calling him "someone's drunken uncle:"

The author writes that bin Laden ducked back into his bedroom and the SEALs followed, only to find the terrorist crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole visible on the right side of his head and two women wailing over his body. [...]

In the account related by administration officials after the raid in Pakistan, the SEALs shot bin Laden only after he ducked back into the bedroom because they assumed he might be reaching for a weapon. [...]

Bissonnette writes less flatteringly of meeting Vice President Joe Biden along with Obama at the headquarters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment after the raid. He says Biden told “lame jokes” no one understood, reminding him of “someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner.”

Do you see these revelations as being significant to the president's reelection hopes or are they merely "color" as they say in the sports broadcasting business?