A reader writes

about the bin Laden photo spike:

The problem stems from the ever-changing story. People expect facts to stay pretty constant, and what’s happened over the past few days goes well beyond minor corrections. It’s just that a lot of people simply don’t believe a single word that they’re hearing and want to see something objective (and all the more when photos of dead Americans are apparently okay). They don’t need to release them to the general public, but why not show them to, say, George W. Bush, Ron Paul, and a few other influential people of various affiliations. I think most people would be willing to accept the word of someone they trust in lieu of actually seeing it themselves. Or, at least, we can separate the sheep from the goats.

Understandable, but photos won’t fix the problem. The problem goes much deeper. It’s the problem, not of knowing whether bin Laden is dead. (His own wife says so and a host of evidence points to that as fact), but of trying to construct a coherent narrative of how he was killed that does not blacken the reputation of the US in its hour of triumph.

The initial story was perfect: a team of crack troops led by our brave commander-in-chief executed a brilliant “Mission Impossible” assault on a heavily guarded compound. The ruthless and cowardly super-villain grabbed his wife and a gun and used her as a human shield and was duly dispatched by a fantastic shot to the head that delivered maximum gore (for the imagination of the American who wanted him, not just dead, but massively dead) and left the trembling, helpless woman safe and sound–and perhaps making her and all violent jihadis everywhere realize for the first time that her man was a monster and that there is a Better Way: the American Way. Then, we seized the body and, using gleaming Science, determined scientifically that it was scientifically clear that this was bin Laden. Finally, because we are a noble and good people, we even gave him a burial according to his traditions because our quarrel is with him and his ilk and not with all of Islam. Now, the sacrifice having been offered, we gather around our gutsy President and, as a *United* States of America, celebrate our Usness through Him, with Him, and in Him–I mean, him–in the Unity of the American Spirit.

Everything in this narrative depends on the Purity of the Sacrifice. If it turns out that the whole “bin Laden hid behind a woman and was unarmed” thing is, well, a lie (as the White House acknowledged) then you naturally start wondering about the rest of the story. Some people, already inclined to think Obama so untrustworthy that they can’t even believe he is an American despite massive evidence that he is, quickly conclude that bin Laden is either a) not dead or b) that he died years ago and the Administration is concocting some massive fraud like faking the Moon Landings.

In reality though, the basic question is not whether bin Laden was killed on Sunday, but the manner of his death. And that is something we hoi polloi simply have no information about except for the shifting accounts of the White House. If it turns out the Obama ordered his troops to murder him even though he was trying to surrender, then the proper term for that will be “murder” just as it was when the Nazis did it to our surrendering troops at Malmedy. If it turns out that he offered resistance, then it will be marked down as perfectly legitimate battlefield tactics against the architect of the greatest mass slaughter of innocent Americans in our history.

However, we’ll never really know unless and until the complete audio and visual transcript of the operation (and the communications with the White House and military command structure) are released: which I highly doubt will happen.

So, we are stuck with the shifting White House version(s) of events as the White House attempts to manage the message and use it to rally the country around Our Great President and his Great Liturgy of Vengeance. The letdown you are feeling is the letdown of having the Purity of Liturgy and the Sacrifice come into question as the White House Trumpet sounds an uncertain note.

In the end, I think, the psychological need for a Pure Sacrifice will overwhelm the question of how bin Laden was dispatched. Most people will simply not ask if the Sacrifice was Pure and will simply content themselves that America killed the Bad Guy and that’s good enough. Obama’s efforts at focusing American unity on himself will fade the next time you have to put $70 into your gas tank and we will be back to business as usual in our Disunited States.

Eventually, in a couple of years, somebody will try to figure out the details of what happened last Sunday and then we will be off and running with our American pastime of debating the morality of the fait accompli.

I reckon there are already conservative strategists trying to figure out how to simultaneously take credit for getting Osama while pinning a war crime on Obama for 2012. And the Obama camp will, quite certainly, be sure to remind us of their brilliance (and of their manly warlike president who is in no way the liberal pantywaist bedwetter that those mean conservatives have been mocking for the last decade). For our Ruling Classes, this entire event is about them and what they stand to gain from it politically. The shifting messages are an indication of that: the goal is to manage the message for maximum political benefit, not to inform you of truth.