The White House has long used Flickr, the photo-sharing website, to publish images from behind the scenes of government. The new pictures of the bin Laden operation are sure to captivate audiences around the world.
Ari MelberThe White House just released several photos of President Obama overseeing the operation to kill Osama bin Laden. The most intense image shows the national security team receiving an update about the operation on May 1 in the Situation Room—and it has been digitally altered for security reasons, as explained below.
Before releasing this photograph, which has already drawn over one million views online, the White House took the precaution of blurring out an apparently sensitive image on the laptop in front of Secretary Clinton. The image may have been satellite photography used in connection with the operation:
Exactly one year before the bin Laden operation, the White House removed a picture from its Flickr feed, where it regularly posts official photographs, after discovering that a small part of a CIA document was visible in a picture. (A spokesman said it was merely a CIA fax cover sheet.)
In other shots from this set, Obama’s national security team watches his address to the nation about bin Laden’s killing:
Below, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, shakes the president’s hand after the adress, as Director Panetta and Secretary Clinton watch:
It can be surprising which backstage pictures are most popular among the public, President Obama once told PBS, noting that a shot of his handwritten speech notes was a big hit. That photo went viral after reporters posted and tweeted it to illustrate Obama’s hands-on approach to speechwriting.
The images from the bin Laden operation are on track to be the most viewed pictures ever released by the White House, and they reinforce the administration’s narrative of President Obama’s hands-on approach to security.
Photos from the other end of the mission, documenting the corpse of bin Laden, would surely draw even more attention if released. The White House recently stated that it has not made a decision on whether to release those images.
For The Nation’s complete coverage of Osama bin Laden’s death, click here.
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.