IF TRUE, A MAJOR EMBARRASSMENT – AT 10:08 AM. ET:  A new book out today by ace reporter Rich Miniter, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, makes the devastating charge that fearless leader and community organizer Barack Obama had to be pulled kicking and screaming into giving the order to take out Osama bin Laden.  If true, and if some other sources confirm it, this drives a devastating hole through the "narrative" that it was Obama who "got" Osama.  From the New York Post:

Hillary Rodham Clinton talked a reluctant President Obama into killing Osama bin Laden — after the president canceled plans for the mission three times, an explosive new book claims.

Obama feared that the daring Navy SEALs operation to raid bin Laden’s hidden Pakistani compound “might go tragically wrong” and he would be blamed for it, author Rich Miniter says.

His account challenges a key element of Obama’s re-election campaign — that his decision to kill the world’s No. 1 terrorist symbolizes his resolute leadership.

And...

The book — “Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him” — describes Obama as being heavily influenced by three women — Clinton; his wife, Michelle; and longtime adviser and confidante Valerie Jarrett.

The book cites an unnamed source in the Joint Special Operations Command as saying that Obama canceled a mission to kill bin Laden in January 2011, as well as another in February and a third in March.

Miniter, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times of London and Washington Times, said Jarrett succeeded in talking Obama out of each of the three missions.

And...

Obama’s reluctance eventually eased. “He knew Clinton was right,” the book, on sale today, claims. But he remained uneasy about giving the final “kill” order.

He was even seized by a “fourth moment of indecision” on May 1, 2011, when it was supposed to be carried out.
The White House later claimed Operation Neptune Spear was delayed a day because of poor weather. But Miniter says the US Air Force Combat Meteorological Center’s own report said weather conditions were “ideal” that day.

When word of Miniter’s impending book circulated last month, the White House said it was an “utter fabrication” that Obama called off the raid three times. Miniter said he stood by his sources.

COMMENT:  Watch carefully the mainstream media's handling of this.  My hunch is that Miniter will be frozen out.  It happens regularly to authors who dare to challenge the Obama myths. 

But conservative media, like Fox, will likely give the book major play.  And the most fascinating part – that Hillary pressured Obama into the raid – may even get some traction among Democrats.  It would make her an even more attractive candidate to replace Biden on the ticket, but that just ain't gonna happen.  The story can be made to surface again in 2016 if Hillary, as expected, tries to arrange her own coronation.

August 21, 2012