Reggie Love: Obama played cards on day Bin Laden was killed
(CNN) - A famous photo shows President Barack Obama hunkered down in the Situation Room in May 2011 with his national security team as U.S. Navy SEALS carried out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
But his former body man Reggie Love said in an interview posted online Wednesday that Obama also played cards to distract himself during the day-long ordeal.
In the wide-ranging interview, which has since been removed from YouTube, Love further revealed the president's reaction upon finding his birth certificate after critics raised an uproar over his eligibility for the White House.
In the July 18 interview, which took place during a lunch hosted by UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs, Love talked about life with the president, including the historic moment more than two years ago when bin Laden was killed.
Describing it as a "very long day," Love said most people were in the Situation Room but Obama came to the private dining room to play cards with Love, White House photographer Pete Souza and staffer Marvin Nicholson.
"[President Obama] was like, 'I'm not, I'm not going to be down there, I can't watch this entire thing'," Love said. "We must have played 15 hands-15 games of Spades."
Love, who left the White House at the end of 2011 to complete his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, also recalled the moment when the president "finally" found his birth certificate.
The moderator jumped in: "It took a little too long, by the way."
Explaining the delay, Love said when "your parents don't live together (and) you travel all over the world, documents get lost."
"He wanted to just have an impromptu press conference, just walk in to the press briefing room in the White House and put it down on the podium. And everyone was like 'That's a really bad idea'," Love said, drawing laughs from the audience.
"But he was very gung-ho about doing it, because he was so irritated about it," he said.
Of course, in April 2011, the president did in fact announce the news in the press briefing room, shortly after his office released the long-form birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii.
"Normally I would not comment on something like this," Obama said. But the country has pressing fiscal and other priorities, he added, and the so-called birther story had been a distraction.
Obama released a shorter, legally binding "certification of live birth" in 2008, but that failed to persuade members of the "birther" movement.
- CNN's Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
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Did he happen to play with a deck of those terrorist cards?
Once again, reality is covered up and a fake story is given to make something mediocre look better than it was.
So what? I'm betting he also had a bite, went to the restroom, drank some coffee... The man was not personally involved in the raid and he did his job. Beyond that, who cares?
And his schools records?
And playstation...and some tetris....and some craigslist surfing too.
Wait a minute now! I watched the 2012 election closely and I'm pretty sure Obama rode into Pakistan on the lead helicopter and may have actually fired the first shot himself. Did I hear that wrong?
Thankfully, he was not reading "My Pet Goat" There is no comparison to our current president to "W".
"I'm not going to be down there, I can't watch this entire thing. But I'll take all the credit afterwards."
Not news. This is absolutely not a news worthy story. All you are doing is inflaming the stupid conservatives. The smart ones won't buy it but there are so many stupid ones out there.
The birthers... you are hilarious. Five years earlier, the same crowd was clamoring to change the constitution so that Arnold could run. But a real record of birth made no difference for them regarding Obama. Hi-lar-i-ous.
cards, golf, leno what ever and you wonder why rodeos are portraying him as a clown
Isn't this the kinda stories you usual see on FOX?
"15 games of Spades". You gotta be kidding.
I'm confused. Obama chose to play cards instead of participate in the killing of Osama Bin Laden? He claimed "I can't watch this entire thing"? Well why not? Maybe after he's out of office and it's no longer politically rewarding, he wants to be able to say that he wasn't actually involved in it? Maybe felt like his hands would be dirtied if he sat in the situation room with all of the generals and such, while America's #1 enemy was being stalked and killed?
Tell what you did during the Benghazi raid.
If you were playing cards while the Navy Seals's Raid was going on, you can not get credit for this incident.
Tell us what you did during the Benghazi raid; Hillary too!
Where was he on the night of the Banghazi attack?....still has not accounted for 8 1/2 hours...HHMMMM
The funny thing is that he still hasn't provided the birth certificate though.
anything but doing even one minutes work!
I thought I might have seen some news related to Phony Scandal #3 (IRS buggering of conservative groups) here on CNN. Wow. Not that this story isn't relevant and important. Spades?! Hmmm.
Ah, memories of some of the first obstructions and distractions of the Republican's Crusade. Now they have more fronts in their war than I can keep track of...
wonder what he did on September 11th, 2012? Never has been answered.
Hypocrites, remember Dubya after being told the World Trade Centers were just attacked? He sat there with a blank look on his face, then continued reading....I mean describing pictures to the children for a very long time. He didn't want to startle the children. Which wasn't the case when he sent their mommy's and daddy's off to a war for no reason. I believe you are hating the wrong president.
Well, the important thing is that King Obama was playing something somewhere. Otherwise he could have been doing his job, which always turns out bad for us.