Sensible for sensibilities or not. The prez makes another good call.

Should he or shouldn’t he?  I speak of whether pictures of the dead version of Osama bin Laden be shown or not to the American people and all the terrorists who supported him. The president has already answered that, unless he comes back several years later and does a repeat of what he did with his own birth certificate, I think that question has been asked and answered.

Obama says the pictures won’t be shown and supposedly that is that. He has had agreement with bipartisan congressional members, a select few, who saw the photos during a briefing. Either that or those members deferred to Obama.

Like practically all other classified material, those pictures of the al Quida member will likely be shown at some time. It may be in a few years or perhaps in 20-30 years. But I am satisfied.

Having worked in the newspaper business I have observed first hand that Americans have a schizoprhenic view when it comes to seeing gory things in the newspaper or TV. I was once on the scene in Central Texas after a boy in his early teens went missing in the water while swimming. The boy had been missing for at least an hour when I walked toward the edge of the creek in which the child disappeared. At the same time a friend of the boy’s family who was at the creek when the boy went under water also  walked near the edge of the water near me. Suddenly, this woman let out an ungodly scream. She glanced into the water and could clearly see as could I the boy floating underneath, tangled up into a branch protruding from the water.

Some paramedics were on the scene and they quickly scooped up the boy and began giving him CPR. I don’t know whether the actions by the medics were a reflex or just meant to take the mind off of what every one had seen. This child had been in the water for more than an hour. The water temperature was not especially cool as this was a mild April day, so hypothermic effects weren’t likely to contribute to the boy’s survival. Nonetheless, the medics’ actions were for naught.

One of our photographers snapped what I believed was a fantastic photo of the paramedics as they were rushing the boy to the ambulance after having pulled him out of the water. I saw a a proof of the photo and later the shot, and I had to say I was proud to have my story with my byline under the great action photo. But many, many readers of the paper did not like the picture. Those outraged called the paper the next morning, bitching out anyone who dared answering the phone. Finally, the publisher relented and issued an apology.

The picture of what to me, who had been a trained emergency medical technician for more than a decade, was an obviously dead child didn’t seem to be particularly gruesome. I’ve seen more than my fair share of dead folks who met an untimely end. Some of those scenes were gruesome. Now, I watch TV shows and some of my favorites such as “NCIS” have fake scene of extremely gruesome deaths. I guess that it’s good that people draw their own lines at what is real and what is “in the can,” so to speak.

My point is that my sensibilities are different that those of other people. I grimace at some of the images on NCIS and I feel that to be a healthy reaction on my part. I feel a whole lot of Americans may just as soon not make their own determination as to whether OBL went to meet his 72 virgins who doused him with a very volatile liquid.

In short, I don’t care that Obama has decided to not release the photos showing Osama bin Laden was dead. As far as I am concerned, he is toast. Let me say it for Gee Dubya: “Mission Accomplished.”