On Wednesday's The View, ABC's Barbara Walters slobbered over the
"courage, and the guts, and the coolness" of President Obama in ordering
the assassination of terrorist Osama bin Laden. "It was enormously,
enormously courageous," she said of the president's decision to commence
the mission to kill or capture the al Qaeda leader.
"President Bush tried, President Clinton tried, but Barack Obama was
the one who had the courage and the guts and the coolness," Walters said
of the mission before being drowned out in applause from the audience.
Two days after she successfully politicized Osama bin Laden's death [1],
Walters hit Sarah Palin for what she thought was Palin's politicization
of the news. Palin's remark that Walters referred to was made at a
benefit for soldiers in Colorado, and read "We thank our President. We
thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set this victory
up."
Members of The View panel questioned if Palin was marginalizing Obama's
role in the mission in simply calling him "our president," or if she
was referring to Bush - and thus choosing to give him all the credit.
Walters, who admitted that she herself had unfairly politicized the
event, chose to interpret Palin as putting fellow Republican Bush in the
spotlight.
"And for us to now make this - for her to now make this a political
'Oh, forget that, it was really Bush' - I mean, [Obama] did a remarkable
thing, and this is the time for us to join together and just say
'Hooray,' and not start already, as I was doing the other day, to make
it a political thing," Walters ranted.
Co-host Joy Behar, meanwhile, even went so far as to say that Bush
"gave up" the search for Osama bin Laden, an accusation that bears
little substance. She was referencing a Bush quote from soon after 9/11
where the president said "I really just don't spend that much time on
him," meaning bin Laden. Bush, however, never said that he was giving up
the hunt for bin Laden.
A transcript of the segment, which aired on May 4 at 11:09 a.m. EDT is as follows:
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: At a benefit in Colorado, Sarah Palin spoke about Bin Laden's death, saying it's a testament to military dedication and quote, "We thank our President. We thank President Bush for having made the right calls to set this victory up."
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: Was the first reference to that president President Obama, or President Bush?
GOLDBERG: She never mentioned - no. I don't know. She -
JOY BEHAR: Palin never mentioned -
SHERRI SHEPPARD: She did not mention his name -
BEHAR: She never mentioned President Obama's name. It's against her religion. (Laughter)
BARBARA WALTERS: But you know, the other day - the other day when we were on and I had just come back, after we had been talking about Osama bin Laden, I said boy I would hate to try to be the Republican candidate now. And you said, and rightly so, this is beyond politics. And it was. But at some point it's going to come down to politics again. President Bush tried, President Clinton tried, but Barack Obama was the one who had the courage and the guts and the coolness, and took that chance - (Applause).
Had this not worked out - (Crosstalk) - he would have gotten all the blame - (Crosstalk) - it was enormously, enormously courageous.
JOY BEHAR: President Bush deserves some credit in the War On Terror, definitely. But he gave up the search for Osama. He gave it up.
HASSELBECK: What do you mean he gave it up?
(Crosstalk)
BEHAR: Wait a minute. In a news conference he gave, he said "We're not thinking of him. We're done with it." He gave it up.
HASSELBECK: I would love to see that -
BEHAR: So - President Obama did not give it up, and that's why they caught him. I mean, that's a fact.
WALTERS: We're talking about Sarah Palin. And for us to now make this - for her to now make this a political "Oh, forget that, it was really Bush" - I mean he did a remarkable thing, and this is the time for us to join together and just say "Hooray," and not start already, as I was doing the other day, to make it a political thing.
- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center