Give the President His Due
Both of them, actually. Bush, for his steadfast and unwavering support for harsh, enhanced, insert-preferred-euphemism-here, interrogations of our terrorist enemies. Apparently, those techniques made a big difference.
And Obama. Who went for it. From the NYTimes:
Administration officials split over whether to launch the operation, whether to wait and continue monitoring until they were more sure that Bin Laden was really there, or whether to go for a less risky bombing assault. In the end,President Obama opted against a bombing that could do so much damage it might be uncertain whether Bin Laden was really hit and chose to send in commandos. A “fight your way out” option was built into the plan, with two helicopters following the two main assault copters as backup in case of trouble.
The code name for Bin Laden was “Geronimo.” The president and his advisers watchedLeon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, on a video screen, narrating from his agency’s headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in faraway Pakistan.
“They’ve reached the target,” he said.
Minutes passed.
“We have a visual on Geronimo,” he said.
A few minutes later: “Geronimo EKIA.”
Enemy Killed In Action. There was silence in the Situation Room.
Finally, the president spoke up.
“We got him.”
If President Obama commits only one truly presidential act while in office -- and so far, by my lights, that's the count -- at least it was this one, this time.
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Re: Give the President His Due
I completely agree, every word.
Mar '11
Re: Give the President His Due
By all means give President Obama his due. He took the riskier path to killing Bin Laden and removed all reasonable doubt of his death. But the intelligence breakthrough that made this possible came from waterboarding at Gitmo and neither the technique nor the location sat well with Obama. He stopped (or claims to have stopped) the waterboarding and he would have closed Gitmo had he gotten his way. In Washington, you’ve got to grade on the curve.
Edited on May 3, 2011 at 9:02amMar '11
Re: Give the President His Due
I have commented on this in another thread, but lemme say it again, in a different way. The fact that Mr Obama could do this is because of how Mr Chimp-Hitler-Bush prepared the way for him. Mr Obama could only give the order to the World's best Military because they have not yet been decimated by his forthcoming budget cuts.
Edited on May 2, 2011 at 9:19pmMar '11
Re: Give the President His Due
I think they are actually watching a Basketball match. Or possibly Mr Obama's most recent trip to the Golf course, before he was called off at the 9th hole for more urgent matters.
Edited on May 2, 2011 at 9:24pmNov '10
Re: Give the President His Due
Well said.
May '10
Re: Give the President His Due
I guess my beef is that killing OBL was more symbolic than tactical, when it came to the larger mission to fight Islamic terrorism. He had relinquished his leadership duties to the next generation. Killing him doesn't kill Al Qaeda. Obama can take his victory lap, but Islamic terrorists are still a threat and there are still a massive amount of US service members being killed or wounded. I have a friend who is an physician at the NNMC in Bethesda, and he is disgusted by the media blackout concerning the number of wounded coming back to the states. I'll give the president another 24 hours, but I think the GOP should light up the media if they go back to not covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because OBL is dead.
Dec '10
Re: Give the President His Due
And it only took President Obama 9 1/2 years to get his man. (You have to include the seven-year head start that he got from President Bush.)
Nov '10
Re: Give the President His Due
Could not agree more.
Sep '10
Re: Give the President His Due
And, let's not forget that Obama actually kept this campaign promise:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/03/us-usa-politics-obama-idUSN0340211820070803
May '10
Re: Give the President His Due
"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!"
There was a risk of failure (there always is) and had the mission failed it would have been Obama's "failed Iranian hostage rescue" moment. He could have chosen an "easier" way (like bombing the compound or doing nothing) and didn't.
The stopped clock is right for an instant.
Sep '10
Re: Give the President His Due
This little victory rings hollow to me as the timing is horrendous. 9 1/2 years is too long. This isn't a game where there is much payoff is killing the other team's leaders and I always found the left's fixation on Osama himself misguided.
How this should reflect well on Obama escapes me. Our intelligence finally had a breakthrough, Obama made a no-brainer decision. I'm glad it was done, but I find Obama's victory lap unseemly. I don't really understand the accolades from Republicans for Obama.
He made the decision any President should make in that situation.
If Democrats scold Republicans for withholding praise for Obama, that's the opening to ask, "well, where are the reports and acknowledgment of the policies Bush and Cheney enacted that led to the intelligence breakthroughs? What did Obama himself do exactly - other than try to end the very programs that were instrumental in locating Bin Laden?"
Really, why should Republicans praise Obama when he and his Democrat friends are refusing to acknowledge Bush/Cheney policies?
I see this as another example of Republicans being clueless on how to handle Democrats and the press.
Jun '10
Re: Give the President His Due
Obama is growing up. I don't begrudge him that. Better late than never. The widely distributed photo of the NATSEC team watching the live streaming of the Operation says it all - he's not front-and-center, but toward the back and to the side, and he looks intent and - dare I say it - humbled. Watching our young SEALs in a live firefight would do that. Of course GWB will never get the credit he deserves, but any sign that the current Prez is finally ready to grow up and get real is good for the nation, and, therefore, good, period.
Oct '10
Re: Give the President His Due
I think Karen's got it about right. Assuming this either/or choice existed in the real world, I'd rather have seen Obama support the Iranian uprising to the point of removing Ahmadinejad and developing ties with Iran than for him to have exterminated OBL. Removing OBL was largely symbolic, removing AhMad and courting his Iranian successors would have been far more in America's national security interests.
So fine, he got OBL. Kudos for that. But BHO's foreign policy failures far outweigh this one lone (admittedly satisfying) success.
Oct '10
Re: Give the President His Due
And let's also not ignore the fact that one of the reasons Bush never got OBL is because Bush was also fighting the Democrats in his efforts to get OBL!
Rendition, waterboarding, Gitmo, the NY Times - the Dems obstructed W every step of the way, and NOW they want to claim credit for having done something W didn't accomplish??!! And they want the credit after having used...rendition, waterboarding, and Gitmo!!!
I'm not going to Dictionary.com to check this, but that sure sounds like chutzpah to me. And probably a few other words that aren't allowed by Rico's CoC.
Aug '10
Re: Give the President His Due
We ought to thank Dick Cheney . Present administration would never put the infrastructure in place for the mission to be accomplished.
Bush and Cheney responsible for building the teams and providing the tools that killed OBL the other day. Obama a lucky guy to have inherited a machine that could get the job done by itself.
The obvious concern etched on their faces in the situation room might be a hint as to the level of unease and unfamiliarity with statecraft. Clinton looks aghast. The relief about the scandal that she started with the birth certificate had finally been resolved and the bigger picture clouded by the good news of the successful hit.
Let's go back to the tape a couple times and listen to the soundbites during the Bush admin from their people . Pelosi:
[E]ven if [Osama bin Laden] is caught tomorrow, it is five years too late. He has done more damage the longer he has been out there. But, in fact, the damage that he has done . . . is done. And even to capture him now I don’t think makes us any safer.
Edited on May 3, 2011 at 8:27amJan '11
Re: Give the President His Due
Well, so much for calling Obama “Carter 2.0.” And so much for the facile references to Obama’s so-called un-American disposition (D’Souza, Rabinowitz) or his kowtowing to the proctors of John Kerry’s “global test.”
This is one cool character. From the time the lead to Osama’s whereabouts was developed in August, the executive department was perfectly coordinated, focused and covert.
There was a disagreement about the method to take the target out. Obama chose the most dangerous but most conclusive approach, the one with the greatest possible rewards but also the highest risk of embarrassment in case of failure. He put his political safety behind his country’s good – exactly as we expect a President to act.
I don’t like this president’s policies, folks, but this man is a leader. When the chips are down, whether it’s a Somali pirate or the most infamous mass-murderer in the world that need a bullet in the head, Obama gives the “kill order.”
Obama used to say that his claim to executive experience was running his campaign in 2008. Well, he’s got a lot more to recommend him now.
Oct '10
Re: Give the President His Due
What was the Dem reaction when we plucked Noriega out of Panama?
What was the Dem reaction when we plucked those kids out of Grenada?
What was the Dem reaction when we plucked the Achille Lauro hijackers out of the skies over Italy?
What was the Dem reaction when Gen. Schwartzkopf overran the "vaunted" Iraqi army in 90 hours?
What was the Dem reaction when we snatched Saddam out of his spider hole?
What was the Dem reaction when we snatched Khalid Sheik Mohammed?
If the Dems want plaudits when they perform pro-America acts when they're in the White House, they damn well better stop committing anti-America acts and disparaging pro-America acts when they're out of the White House.
Edited on May 3, 2011 at 11:32amJan '11
Re: Give the President His Due
Either you adjust to new facts and new perceptions in order to conduct a winning campaign against your political opponents; or you ignore those new facts and new perceptions and persist in your old ways.
The latter approach is the road to self-marginalization and failure. It's cranky, too.
"When the facts change I change my opinion," John Maynard Keynes said. "What do you do, sir?"
Elect no Democrat anywhere, ever.
Nov '10
Re: Give the President His Due
Period.
Dec '10
Re: Give the President His Due
Elite career politicians who achieve power in Washington share three character defects that sustain their confidence to succeed in their career: Spending the money of others for their own advancement and aggrandizement; shamelessly taking credit for the work of others; and creatively discharging their own blame onto others.
When our historic first Islamic apostate president makes an impromptu announcemnt to concentrate our attention on him—Sunday night’s preemption of the finale of his arch-rival’s “reality” show—it is necessary to look beyond his pro forma narcissism in order to determine what distortion of truth his duplicitously inventive narrative is intended to create. Is he blaming others or is he taking undue credit for others’ work?
In this case, his excitement in speaking at the podium betrayed his intention first, to obfuscate his dithering—he delayed for 16 hours before acting on CIA Director Panetta's recommendation to strike immediately—then to take credit for heroic decisiveness by spinning the story of how diligent he was in taking action—for doing what any CinC would do without any preliminary political calculation.
It takes willful blindness to give credit to the manipulations of this ambitious poseur.
Edited on May 3, 2011 at 8:58pm