President Obama told CBS News he will not release pictures of the dead Osama bin Laden. I know that not doing so will raise the suspicions of those who don’t believe that Bin Laden is really dead or wonder why the military has been so secretive about disposing of the body. It has already kicked off the conspiracy theories.

But releasing the photos wouldn’t stop the disbelievers anyway. They would claim they’re doctored, or that it’s not really him, or whatever. It would be the birth certificate thing all over again. So even if they put his body on display on the Washington Mall and let folks line up to see it, there would be plenty of skeptics to go around.

And of course this being a capitalist culture, the pictures would go viral and end up on t-shirts being hawked at Ground Zero or turned into the number 1 hit on LOLCats, making the photos the most memorable thing about this story.

Just because a picture is worth a thousand words doesn’t mean we have to hear them.