Bad news for those of us who wanted to see Bin Laden with a hole blown in his head - the White House said it's not releasing the photos

Here was Press Secretary Jay Carney at today's White House briefing reading a transcript of an upcoming 60 Minutes interview with President Obama over why he decided not to release the photos:

"That's NOT who we ARE."

What Jay Carney just said right there strikes right to the heart of what Bush did to this country and what President Obama is trying to change. While Bush was Governor of Texas - he executed 131 people - no other state came close to flipping the switch on as many prisoners. And Bush did it with ease

As a 2003 article entitled "The Texas Clemency Memos" by Alan Berlow in The Atlantic" magazine pointed out:

"Governor Bush frequently approved executions based on only the most cursory briefings on the issues in dispute."

In other words - he didn't think twice about taking another man's life - even when the guilt of that man might be questionable. And Bush wore these executions as a badge of honor - saying in a 200 Presidential debate:

"I’m proud of the fact that we hold people accountable."

When the Supreme Court handed Bush the presidency back in 2000 - he brought this same brutality to the White House - and in doing so - our nation became more brutal - more bloodthirsty. That's why instead of resorting to Interpol or black OPS or surgical military operations to track don those responsible for 9/11 - Bush went to war - he wanted maximum violence<./p>

Heck - not a single ounce of blood needed to be shed to get Bin Laden after 9/11 - Afghanistan's leader, Mullah Omar, offered to capture him and hand him over to face trial TWICE - but Bush said no way each time - he'd been working on the war against Iraq ever since 1998 when his brother Jeb and his Defense Secretary Rumsfeld signed the PNAC document calling for an invasion, and 1999 when he told his biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, that if he was elected he fully intended to be a war president because that was the best way to get political capital.

In world history books we read about brutal military commanders who would post the heads of their vanquished enemies on posts for everyone to see, showing off their own brutality. And today we refer to those people as barbarians. But this is exactly what Bush brought from Texas to the White House - barbarism.

After we went into Iraq and blasted away Saddam Hussein's sons - Bush proved that we could be just as violent and brutal as Saddam was - by releasing the photos of the bullet-ridden dead bodies. He might as well have sawed their heads off and posted them on stakes in front of the White House.

Heck - Bush would have loved to show a picture of Saddam's corpse too - but he didn't want the world to know how he botched the hanging, accidentally decapitating and having to chase his head rolling around the room. And all the while - a small segment of the American people bought in - blood-lust can be contagious.

When Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq in 2006 - the Bushies splayed his body out for photographers to get their shots in - and then those photos were plastered on the Internet - newspapers - and cable news - as in - "we can kill people, too, and do it with enthusiasm".

But President Obama is not like President Bush - he doesn't have a history of executing people - in fact, his history is the opposite, as a community organizer and law professor - he teaches people and brings them together. He's what's known as a statesman. And no matter how terrible a criminal may be - there's still a certain bit of respect that should be paid to the dead. There's something unsavory about rejoicing and celebrating the death of ANYONE - even Bin Laden.

As John Donne famously said, "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

Yes, we should be relieved that Bin Laden is gone - yes, this is a good thing for the world - but to party hard over a man being shot in the head is not who we are. We are not who Bush tried to make us into. We are not like Al-Qaeda that kidnaps an American like Daniel Pearl - severs his head on the Internet - and rejoices over his death. It's just not who we are - and that's what President Obama told us all today.

We're involved in a hearts-and-minds struggle in the Middle East - and it depends on US not being like THEM.

Sarah Palin disagrees - she thinks we should be like them - tweeting today:

"Show photo as warning to others seeking America's destruction. No pussy-footing around, no politicking, no drama - it's part of the mission".

We don't need to prove anything to Al-Qaeda - we're America. This is especially important when the release of gruesome photos as if we were swaggering braggarts could light off a powder keg. We are a constitutionally-limited representative democratic republic.

If our representatives - the people we elected - members of the House and Senate intelligence committees - have seen the proof and the photos, that's enough. Beyond that, there's no good reason why Bin Laden's death photos should be released. Releasing the photos wouldn't have satisfied the deathers - they'd say it was photoshopped. And the rest of us understand that we don't need to see the blood to get the picture.

Bin Laden's dead - we don't need the trophies. We did what we needed to do – after ten long years.

Now let's move on.

That's The Big Picture.