Wednesday, May 4, 2011
WHEN President Obama cracked jokes at the White House correspondents' dinner, the night before he announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, in a way he misled media on what was about to happen.
White House, known to leak news more profusely than a broken water pipe, was able for once to keep a tight lid on, and distract journalists from, the story.
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No one had a clue, not even "Saturday Night Live" head writer Seth Myers who spoofed bin Laden but wasn't prescient enough.
Did Obama deceive the media? He did what any prudent president would do if he was about to order a hit on a most wanted criminal who had eluded a 10-year hunt by the Americans.
In a sense, he was play-acting, which helped. His funny jabs at Donald Trump on the “birther” issue and the billionaire's presidential ambition showed a leader with no major worry on the eve of a tough military op that could blow up in his face.
It wasn't lying, not the kind FDR did on the Yalta conference, Kennedy on Cuban missile crisis, Johnson on Gulf of Tonkin incident, Reagan on Iran Contra scandal, and G.W. Bush on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
'Given'
But had the news broken prematurely and Obama lied, it would've been the sort he could justify in the name of national security.
Presidential dishonesty, the American people must know by now, is assumed, a "given" in the job of leading a nation in constant peril.
It's different though in this country where a president could lie not to make the nation safe but to explain where he was and what he and his buddies were doing when a crisis struck.
(paseares@sunstar.com.ph/paseares@gmail.com)
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on May 05, 2011.
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