What Will The White House's Bungling Narratives About bin Laden Death Do To Obama's Poll Numbers?

Pollsters have been in a mad race to judge the "Obama Bounce" following the grand statement Barack Obama made about the death of Osama bin Laden, some showing an immediate limited bounce for his handling of Afghanistan and terrorism while reporting a drop in domestic issues such as economy and deficit, others showing a bump and still others headlining "big rise" in poll numbers.

As the initial celebratory feeling over the death of Osama wears off though, the fact that Obama was preempted in informing the world of the news by Twitter users, facebook and almost every news station, conflicting stories coming from White House officials following the death of Osama, in video, print and interviews, and other administration officials rushing to change the story time and time again, it leaves a feeling of a bungling Obama and an ill informed administration.

Public Opinion Strategies produced a chart showing how previous presidents enjoyed a bounce and how long those bounces lasted after huge moments in their presidency, but what they didn't address in that chart was how the handling of those same events affected the bounce itself or the duration.

Conflicting Stories

NYT describes how stories from the White House have been contrary to each other starting the morning after the announcement:

Still, the account diverged in some ways from one given Monday by the president’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan. He had said Bin Laden was “engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in,” adding, “whether or not he got off any rounds, I frankly don’t know.”

Mr. Brennan also said then that Bin Laden used his wife as a “human shield.” But officials now say that the death of another woman in the crossfire on another floor led them to draw that false conclusion.

Then the stories changed:

Members of a Navy Seals team burst in on Bin Laden in the compound where he was hiding and shot him in a room on an upper floor, after a fierce gun battle with other operatives of Al Qaeda on the first floor.

Bin Laden’s wife, who was with him in the room, “rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, reading from the brief account, which was provided by the Defense Department. “Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.”

Discrepancies in the stories by Obama officials aren't the only news coming out which shows a bumbling narrative.

Now stories are hitting the media about how Obama "kept military commanders hanging by declaring he would 'sleep on it' before taking 16 hours to give the go-ahead to raid Bin Laden's compound", with later reports showing Osama has phone numbers and cash on hand for a quick escape. Then Obama decided to go golfing (to keep up appearance you know!!)

Could they bumble the public relations any more?

Why yes, they can and have and continue to do so!

People inside and outside the USA, not willing to trust Obama's word on the matter solely, without any type of proof, are doubting the validity of the statements, especially since the stories keep conflicting and refuse to believe Osama is really dead.

For the record, I believe Osama bin Laden is dead, because only a complete moron would announce the death if it wasn't so when it could be so easily disproved if it wasn't true.

Still, there are those that don't believe it and the Obama administration has had the photo and video proof since the raid went down but showing the indecisiveness the Obama administration has become known for, original reports claimed the Obama White House was going to release the photo proof, now reports are coming out that they are still debating on whether or not to show proof of death, claiming that showing them could be "inflammatory". (Update- Now they are saying Obama has decided to not release the photo)

Newsflash- They already hate us, they already plan attacks against us and they are already vowing revenge.

PS to Obama- The families of 9/11 victims are asking for the photos to be released.

The longer Obama waits to produce them will only enlarge and encourage the groups who believe there is a conspiracy of some type going on. ( I asked the other day if Obama had learned nothing from his birth certificate issue and how the conspiracy theories grew over time because he refused for years to release proof)

Back to the Public Opinion Strategies chart which uses previous data on presidential bounces and drops, we see that their estimate is Obama will receive approximately a 13 percent bounce which will last for 22 weeks.

The public already credits the military and the CIA more than the Obama administration for the raid that killed bin Laden, which leads me to believe that with the fumbling, bumbling and outright incompetence by the Obama White House in regards to the public relations after the death of Osama bin Laden, I would hazard a guess that the Obama bounce will last no more than 10 weeks, if that.

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