Will Obama spiking the Bin Laden football backfire?

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 2, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the day that the brave men of SEAL Team 6 delivered justice to Usama bin Laden. And for the past several days, President Obama and his re-election spin machine, well, they have been taking a victory lap, glossing over who the real heroes are. And last night, it literally took him around the world to Afghanistan. But a brand-new political ad put out by Veterans for Strong America is highlighting the difference between heroism and politics. Let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID GREGORY, NBC NEWS: Usama bin Laden has been killed.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: There will be no parades, they have already gone back into the shadows, without the outside world even knowing their names.

GRAPHIC: Heroes don't seek credit.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I can report,

I directed Leon Panetta...

I was briefed...

I met repeatedly...

I determined in my direction...

I called the President Zardari...

I, as commander in chief...

GRAPHIC: Heroes don't spike the football.

OBAMA: We don't need to spike the football.

OBAMA: I said that I would go after Bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him. And I did.

GRAPHICS: Heroes put their lives on the line.

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, OBAMA CAMPAIGN AD: Suppose the Navy SEALs had gone in there. Suppose they had been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for him.

GRAPHIC: Horrible for HIM?

And heroes don't politicize their acts of valor.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, THE HUFFINGTON POST: But to turn to a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.

GRAPHIC: Their training.

Their sacrifice.

That's what makes victory possible.

Heroism.

Politics.

OBAMA: I said that I would go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did.

I did.

I did.

I did.

GRAPHIC: Tell President Obama: Our service members sacrifice to protect our country. Not to benefit his political campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Wow. I don't think the difference could be any clearer. And as President Obama continues to pat himself on the back again and again, well, his own words are coming back to haunt him. Let's listen to what he said back in 2006.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, SEPT. 17, 2006)

OBAMA: I have had enough of using terrorism as a wedge issue on our politics. I have had enough of that. I have had enough of that.

I don't know about you, but I think that the war against terrorism isn't going to supposed to crop up between September and November of even-numbered years. And yet that seems to be the pattern. There is a sudden burst of activity, a sudden urgency about this whole thing, three months before an election, every other year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. So, I wonder how team Obama is going to try to spin this one.

Joining me now with reaction, the author of the New York Times bestseller, "Suicide of a Superpower," Patrick J. Buchanan. Patrick J., welcome back to the program. All right. Quick question -- did they overreach here, especially in the ad against Romney?

PATRICK J. BUCHANAN, AUTHOR, "SUICIDE OF A SUPERPOWER": Well, there is no question about it, Sean, what the President of the United States just did was take a 14,000-mile round trip to Afghanistan basically to put a partisan gloss on what was a national victory and to do something of an end zone dance to revive the issue of the heroism of SEAL Team 6 and use it for partisan advantage. It was crass. It was exploitative and I think it's going to backfire because it was so transparent.

HANNITY: Yes. Well, look at this -- how powerful this ad is. He has had the former joint chiefs, Mukasey's come out against him. Many Navy SEALs. Look at what this ad says. Heroes don't seek credit. Heroes don't spike the football. Heroes don't politicize act of valor. They put their lives on the line. Here's the front cover of the New York Post today reads, Ka-bull and it says, Obama spikes bin Laden football.

Now, Obama said back a year ago, he wasn't up for re-election then. And remember, he was -- in the context though, we can't incite the Arab world or the Islamic world by showing pictures of bin Laden. Here's what -- you know, the president said back then about not spiking the football.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "60 MINUTES," MAY 8, 2011)

OBAMA: We don't try trot out this stuff as trophies. You know, the fact of the matter is, this was somebody who was deserving of the justice that he received. And I think Americans and people around the world are glad that he's gone. But -- but we don't need to spike the football.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: I mean -- does anybody there -- they were in a pretty smart campaign, Patrick J. in 2008. I have to wonder sometimes, did anybody think this through, that this is a potential outcome in this?

BUCHANAN: Well, what you just had that, that last clip by President Obama, as president of the United States, leader of the American people, said look, this is not a partisan issue, not a divisive issue. These were American heroes, and I gave the order but they carried it out and it's an American victory. Now he is trying to leap on this, put a partisan stamp on it, make it a Democratic Party victory, exploit it.

It is very crass. And the great asset the president has is the Oval Office, the presidency of the United States. He is diminishing that by using events which are national events as partisan events. Sean, I was in the White House when Richard Nixon ordered the Son Tay raid, both sides went in there, 20 miles, outside of -- tore into those prison and it was terrible that there were no prisoners there, but they killed a couple of hundred of the Vietnamese. It was a heroic thing, he didn't take partisan credit for that. It was an American event.

HANNITY: Yes.

BUCHANAN: And I think this is where the president's hurting himself.

HANNITY: You know, Pat, I have been making this case for a long time. And I know some of your former leftist colleagues that you were very close to at one point might -- took a lot of issue with this. But here's the reality. And we are going to have this discussion about bin Laden, we need to have the whole discussion. And the reality is that we had Jose Rodriguez and he was the guy that led the enhanced interrogation technique efforts, Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He knows the intelligence that we got. We had him on this program this week. He could not have been more clear. Without EIT, without rendition, without black sites, without Gitmo, we don't have the intelligence for the president to make the decision to send in SEAL Team 6. So if we are going to have this discussion, let's put it out in the open here. He was wrong. And we wouldn't have gotten bin Laden but for the Bush policies that he opposed.

BUCHANAN: Well, I think that's correct. And look, getting bin Laden was a process that took a long, long time. Again, let me go back to Nixon, briefly. President Nixon in 1969 was out on the Pacific when the fellas went to the moon. But Johnson had done a tremendous part in this, Kennedy had. And the greatest part of course was these astronauts themselves. But again, Sean, what we are seeing, and it suggests a real desperation in the campaign, an effort to take an event which is a very positive event for all Americans and to say, this was me, this was us. This is what we -- Democrats did in the White House, when it was that SEAL Team out there in Afghanistan that did it.

HANNITY: All right. So, when the reality comes in. He was wrong on the policies that gave us the intelligence. And if you listen to Joe Biden, he says, OK, so bin Laden's dead and GM is still alive, if you will. They are still in business. Now, Investor's Business Daily today comes out with a piece, and GM and GMAC still owe the taxpayers of this country over $35 billion. So, is he going to be able to tout -- those are the two things he's touting as his success. Does the story get to be told on that? And does that backfire on him?

BUCHANAN: Well, I think some of us who had GM stock can tell you--

(LAUGHTER)

HANNITY: Are you one of them, Pat?

BUCHANAN: My wife's inheritance was in GM stock.

HANNITY: Oh, man!

BUCHANAN: But I tell you, I am glad GM's kept alive and all of that. But look, again, why did Biden do this and turn this into an us versus Mitt thing? We did it. He didn't. The thing is, this is so stupid politically, I'll tell you, Sean. When have you something like that that the president is associated with and made the call and said go ahead. It was a gutsy call. Why don't you just stand back and let people say what you did?

HANNITY: Exactly.

BUCHANAN: Take a light bow and point to these fellows. They are the ones who did the job. Fellows, let's applaud them. You are there. You don't have to say me, me, me.

HANNITY: All right. Let me ask you. Last question. "Suicide of a Super Power." If in fact, Barack Obama were to get re-elected -- at the end of four years, we are going to have $6 trillion in new debt in all likelihood, or very close to it. We have over $5 trillion in new Obama debt, we see what he has done to the economy, we see what he has adopted the western European socialist model, where do you see the country headed if he gets re-elected?

BUCHANAN: Barack Obama's re-elected. We're going to have a Republican House. They may lose a few seats in the Senate. We may pick- up. The Republicans may pick up a couple of seats. But we will have is the same deadlock for four years that we have had for almost the last year, Sean. And if that happens and it's going to happen because they are not going to get together. If that happens, we are Spain, we are Italy, we are Greece. I think you will have a real international economic crisis because these two folks can't get together. The one hope you got, I think, is a Republican president, Republican Senate, Republican House say, you fellas got two years to make the cuts you promised to make. Now do it, or we'll throw you out.

HANNITY: All right. And do you think -- who do you think, Romney wins at this point?

BUCHANAN: I think Mitt Romney's got a far better chance than folks believe. But I do think people are coming around to the idea that Barack Obama is not necessarily a winner and one of the reasons is, the panicked campaign that was revealed in what he did in Afghanistan.

HANNITY: And well said, Patrick J. Buchanan. Good do see you, sir.

BUCHANAN: Good to see you, my friend.

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