… vs. reality:
To be clear: Obama should be commended for having the common sense to adhere to the policies of his predecessor — and for signing off on the mission that netted Osama bin Laden.
But that’s about it.
Instead, he seems to want credit for fortuitous timing, presenting himself as some sort of armchair general rather than a sitting Commander in Chief being briefed on operations in between campaign stops, correspondent dinners, golf, and White House concerts. His trying to capitalize politically on bin Laden’s death is hardly unexpected, and yet the way he’s gone about it is so petty, so transparent, so small, that all he’s succeeded in doing is reminding people — even as the media strains to rework the narrative in his favor — that he opposed the very methods that yielded the intelligence necessary to find bin Laden. He opposed the very status of “enemy combatants”. He opposed “illegal wiretapping of American citizens” up until he needed to vote for it in order to shore up his anti-terrorism bona fides in the run-up to the Presidential election in 2008. And so on.
Which is to say, Obama’s tawdry victory lap is only serving to remind Americans just how dangerous was the left’s attempt to obstruct, defund, and criminalize the prior Administration’s efforts to keep Americans safe.
2012 is a clear choice election. Keep the choices stark and classical liberalism/constitutional conservatism wins out over socialism and liberal fascism. And if it doesn’t, at least we’ll know what, precisely, lost.
We also need to watch for revisionists like Jonathan Alter: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-05-02/bin-laden-s-death-may-be-marker-in-u-s-history-jonathan-alter.html
Obviously, there are a myriad of reasons to hate Obama, but this particular occasion might just up the ante. I listened to his IIIIIIIIII’s for only so long. The guy politicizes everything.
Bright side: Obama’s idiocy becomes most obvious in perceived success. (eg. 1000+ companies granted waivers from the most desirable health care reform possible)
Let’s not forget that “I” did “my” very best to make sure “you” lost in Iraq.
I’m still convinced that the American people will see through the cartoonish attempts by the left to shamelessly capitalize, politically, on actions they had spent literally years fulminating about.
The MBM isn’t the gatekeepers of information anymore, so all of their garment rending over intelligence gathering methods or how they characterized SEAL teams like the one that “got” Bin Laden as “unaccountable assasination squads” will ultimately come back to haunt them.
Just as their rhetoric about the “swift action based soley on Obama’s resolve! to get Bin Laden!”. By their own measure, then, I suppose that FDR doesn’t get even an honorable mention, since Truman was the sitting President when WWII ended…
They’ll over-reach, that’s what they do.
Osama’s death as a turning point in history? How can we have one in 2008 and another w/in. Three years? It’s more like a spinning top of history.
Sorry for the typos- my satellite dish is tits up And I’m on my phone.
Hard to believe a guy named “Alter” would engage in revisionism…
Cheney broadsided the left’s rather creative use of rhetoric. (Bullshit, if you wish.) Nice fusillade, Mr. C.
I suddenly find Dick Cheney a rather attractive man. Just saying.
Obama’s only calculation was whether the political blowback from exposure of failing to do this mission would be greater than doing the mission and failing. That the calculation was 100% political and related only to his reelection efforts and not to what is important for the country is what needs to be highlighted. Real leaders lead a nation, Poseurs lead their livelihoods…
What I like is that Obama is trying to take all the credit. When all he really did was say “ok, go ahead”. It’s like your Mom taking credit for building a tree fort in your backyard, when all she said was “uh-huh” when you asked her if YOU could build one.
Other people worked years to find him, others made plans to get him, others trained and executed the plan. He wrote his name on a piece of paper (and watched the video).
Interesting.
Very interesting, Steph. Any corroboration that you’ve seen?
Sort of a reverse-Kerry, he was against secret prisons, enhanced interrogation techniques, extending the war into Pakistan, wiretapping, raising the debt limit, and assassination before he was for them.
You have to give Obama credit for rolling the dice though. Had the mission failed and Americans died a la Carter’s Operation Eagle Claw, his presidency would have been effectively cemented as Carter II and the future would have been bleak for him as the rats started jumping ship in earnest. He took a big risk with his popularity (and the Seals’ lives). Nonetheless, he reveals himself again to be a small man with a big ego as he and his minions try to make political hay.
Steph – did they source that?
NO, it is the Ulsterman ‘inside source’ reporting that has been popping up for months. He claims to have a ‘disappointed Obot’ who is in the WH (a kind of Clinton rogue agent type), but if it is a good source, the military won’t sit idly by as he blows smoke.
And I don’t give Obama credit for rolling the dice. The dice was a three sided equation.
A – do mission and it’s a success
B – do mission and it may be a failure and you are Jimmah II
C – don’t do mission and risk leakage that you are Clinton II
Most leaders will pick option A, that’s no decision and entails no personal cost.
Options B and C require a decision based on major personal costs, but he vetted them based on personal costs (political realities) and not on what is best for the country. Bush would have based options B and C on the country’s costs and ignored the personal costs.
Real leaders lead at great cost to themselves, he ain’t no real leader.
And if it’s true that he was cornered into it, he was a snake who will be exposed. Remember the press are saying the WH knew about this site since last August and he dithered for 8 months. How long would Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have waited to act?
The UK papers are reporting that Obama took 16 hours after the pentagon told him it was a go to give the final green light after the team was trained and ready.
From the link with sourcing from the NYT so it must be true:
Obama kept military commanders hanging by declaring he would ‘sleep on it’ before taking 16 hours to give the go-ahead to raid Bin Laden’s compound.
But the president stunned officials when he told a national security meeting that he wanted more time to think – and disappeared out of the room.
‘I’m not going to tell you what my decision is now – I’m going to go back and think about it some more,’ said Obama, according to the New York Times. He then added ‘I’m going to make a decision soon.’
The head of the CIA and other senior intelligence officers who were keen to proceed were left tense as they waited for the president’s decision.
“Obama’s only calculation was whether the political blowback from exposure of failing to do this mission would be greater than doing the mission and failing. “
I think it’s a tactical mistake to diminish the Presidents role to get a president. The buck stopped with him, he owns it, and he should get due credit. I’m very happy Obama didn’t try and get cute and attempt to capture Osama for a NY trial. Or worse, a UN trial. He done good in killing the prick.
Of course the instrument of his command was deemed non-essential during budget negotiations, and repugnant during his predecessors term, little more than a social lab for his own purposes now, but still, he takes responsibility for killing OBL, and I thank him for it.
That also means he takes responsibility for rising inflation, high unemployment, insane borrowing, the weakening dollar, and crushing national debt.
It doesn’t mean he is responsible for childhood obesity, managing private companies, providing “free” health care, or the fucking weather.
But I am glad he ordered the kill shot.
Stephanie – if that is accurate, it should be devastating.
In general, I just do not get how this could have been anything other than a simple decision.
Hmmmph. We got Osama in spite of Obama, not because of him. And we’re lucky we didn’t have either Clinton in place, given Bill’s earlier failure to pull the trigger when he had the chance.
Come 2012, the economy will override whatever temporary bump this dirty socialist gets.
I don’t get how it wasn’t a ‘no-brainer’ either… but then there’s that scar on his head so maybe it did require some brainzzz…
poor baracky they made him do it. what happen to “yes we can”?
And, BTW the follow up quote from the UK I added is SOURCED from the NYT. The paper of record. It must be true. Res Ipsa Loquitor. Hoist by his own minions – which they will quickly scuttle to the fathoms to keep OBL company once they finish polishing the official narrative.
Right now the narratives are contradictory and don’t even jibe with them having watched the thing go down as they claim to have done. Carney, Panetta, and Brennan are all telling different tales…
Then there’s this:
From Taranto’s WSJ blog today:
?”The raid was the culmination of years of painstaking intelligence work, including the interrogation of C.I.A. detainees in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, where sometimes what was not said was as useful as what was.”–news story, New York Times, May 3
?”There is no evidence that good intelligence like this was the result of secret detentions or abuse and torture. Everything suggests the opposite.”–editorial, New York Times, May 3