http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/how-republicans-are-claiming-credit-for-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden.php?ref=fpbLike so many memes that persist in politics, this one started on the Internet. The morning after President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan, conservatives started crowing that credit should be given to President George W. Bush -- specifically, for having the foresight and courage to torture the people who provided the initial scraps of intel that ultimately led the CIA to a giant compound just north of Islamabad.
The most prominent of these conservatives was Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who took to Twitter to ask sardonically, "Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?"
There's just one problem. The key bit of intel wasn't acquired via torture, according to a more fleshed out version of the same report.
But the myth provided a brief opening. Thus have Republicans constructed a version of events by which they -- and Bush in particular -- deserve some of credit for bin Laden's death. Not all of it. Indeed they have by and large acknowledged Obama's role, and congratulated him on it. And most have not been as brazen as King or the Tea Party Express in attributing the success of the mission to Bush's interrogation policies. But Bush, they argue, played a big part as well, akin to the husband who loosens the lid to a Mason jar only to watch his wife open it effortlessly.
Thus, a big chunk of the rationale for giving the Bush credit for bin Laden's death falls apart. It took officials until Obama's presidency to locate this courier, and well into Obama's second year in office before they found the compound. Only then was the raid itself designed and, on Sunday, implemented.