{"id":1051,"date":"2012-08-15T08:14:46","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=1051"},"modified":"2012-08-15T08:14:46","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:14:46","slug":"swift-boat-esque-campaign-says-obama-exaggerated-role-in-bin-ladens-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2012\/08\/15\/swift-boat-esque-campaign-says-obama-exaggerated-role-in-bin-ladens-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"Swift Boat-esque Campaign Says Obama Exaggerated Role in bin Laden&#8217;s Killing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pixel.nymag.com\/imgs\/daily\/intel\/2012\/08\/15\/113349668.o.jpg\/a_190x190.jpg?w=525\"><\/p>\n<p>Though President Obama frequently cites his role in overseeing the operation that killed Osama bin Laden as one of his biggest successes, he usually makes it clear that he didn&#8217;t pull an <i>Air Force One<\/i> and take out the terrorist leader on his own. However, Reuters <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2012\/08\/15\/us-usa-campaign-binladen-ad-idUSBRE87E01F20120815\">reports<\/a> that a group of former <span><span>U.S. intelligence and Special Forces operatives<\/span><\/span> is launching a media campaign attacking President Obama for taking credit for bin Laden&#8217;s death and allegedly leaking classified information. &#8220;Mr. President, you did not kill Osama bin Laden, America did. The work that the American military has done killed Osama bin Laden. You did not,&#8221; says Navy SEAL Ben Smith in a short film set to be released on Wednesday. &#8220;As a citizen, it is my civic duty to tell the president to stop leaking information to the enemy &#8230; It will get Americans killed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>A spokesman for the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc. says the group has about $1 million and is hoping to raise more with the release of its 22-minute documentary about the Obama administration&#8217;s alleged leaks (which Reuters describes as &#8220;spy-movie style&#8221;). It&#8217;s also planning to air TV ads in several swing states. <br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Like the group behind the swift boat ads that criticized John Kerry, <span>the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc<\/span>. claims it&#8217;s nonpartisan, though it seems singularly focused on criticizing President Obama. (The FEC eventually <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2006\/12\/13\/fec-hits-swift-boat-veter_n_36201.html\">fined<\/a> Swift Boat Veterans for Truth after finding it was mainly working against Kerry.) <span>Scott Taylor<\/span>, a former Navy SEAL, said the group is merely a &#8220;watchdog organization,&#8221; but added that the Obama administration <span>&#8220;has certainly leaked more than others.&#8221; Another spokesman, former CIA case officer Fred Rustmann,<\/span> said the White House has been leaking classified information &#8220;to help this guy get re-elected, at the expense of peoples&#8217; lives&#8230;. We want to see that they don&#8217;t do this again.&#8221; The White House insists that it didn&#8217;t leak any information, and two federal prosecutors are <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intel\/2012\/06\/eric-holder-announces-investigation-into-leaks.html\">currently investigating<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Obama campaign responded that no one in the group has the authority to comment on these national security issues, and highlighted recent comments from <span>Admiral Bill McRaven, commander of the raid,<\/span> about Obama&#8217;s close involvement in the operation. The campaign added, &#8220;it&#8217;s clear they&#8217;ve resorted to making things up for purely political reasons.&#8221; Conveniently, there&#8217;s no way of knowing exactly who &#8220;they&#8221; are. The group has set itself up as a 501(c)(4) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a group that&#8217;s supposed to be aimed at educating the public rather than getting candidates elected or defeated \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and thus it isn&#8217;t required to disclose the names of its donors.<\/p>\n<p>Read more posts by <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/author\/margaret%20hartmann\">Margaret Hartmann<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Filed Under:<br \/>\n          <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/news\/campaign-2012\" title=\"Read all posts tagged campaign 2012\">campaign 2012<\/a><br \/>\n            <\/strong>,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/news\/attack-ads\" title=\"Read all posts tagged attack ads\">attack ads<\/a><br \/>\n            ,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/news\/politics\" title=\"Read all posts tagged politics\">politics<\/a><br \/>\n            ,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/news\/national-security-leaks\" title=\"Read all posts tagged national security leaks\">national security leaks<\/a><br \/>\n            ,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/news\/osama-bin-killed\" title=\"Read all posts tagged osama bin killed\">osama bin killed<\/a>\n            <\/p>\n<p>via Daily Intel <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intel\/2012\/08\/group-says-obama-exaggerated-bin-laden-role.html\">http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intel\/2012\/08\/group-says-obama-exaggerated-bin-laden-role.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though President Obama frequently cites his role in overseeing the operation that killed Osama bin Laden as one of his biggest successes, he usually makes it clear that he didn&#8217;t pull an Air Force One and take out the terrorist leader on his own. However, Reuters reports that a group of former U.S. intelligence and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2012\/08\/15\/swift-boat-esque-campaign-says-obama-exaggerated-role-in-bin-ladens-killing\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Swift Boat-esque Campaign Says Obama Exaggerated Role in bin Laden&#8217;s Killing&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[53,6,52],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-reader","tag-daily-intel","tag-ifttt","tag-margaret-hartmann"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2skW4-gX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}