We previously discussed the unease that many of us felt with the celebrations that occurred over the killing of Bin Laden and the later use of the killing to bolster the Obama campaign. This discomfort increased recently with an Obama commercial that unfairly suggested that Governor Mitt Romney would not have ordered the operation to go forward. Just in case anyone thought that was a tasteless and baseless campaign pitch by an overzealous Obama aide, the President himself just reaffirmed that message in a press conference with the Prime Minister of Japan this afternoon. It appears that, while the Administration will again bar the release of photos to the media and the public of the operation, they are eager to drag the body of Bin Laden behind the presidential limo to every possible campaign stop.
Recently, Vice President Joe Biden called the President’s ordering the operation as the most audacious plan in 500 years — apparently dwarfing Washington’s crossing of the Delaware and a number of other minor skirmishes. The thrust of these comments is that the President was the brave one to risk the political fallout of an unsuccessful operation.
We previously saw a squabble between Bush and Obama on who can claim part of the scalp of Bin Laden. It is clear that the President has decided to abandon his promise not to engage in excessive celebration or self-aggrandizement over the killing. I suppose there is now regret in the White House that they decide to forgo the taxidermist option in favor of the ocean disposal.
In the press conference, Obama seemed eager to suggest that Romney doesn’t have the guts to kill people, even our most hated enemies.
“I’d just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and to take out bin Laden. I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. And that’s been at least my practice. I said that I would go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him–and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they would do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.
I suppose that explanation will now trigger a contest on how more willing each man is to order killings like some natural-born killer. With Obama recently claiming the right to kill citizens on his sole authority, that could be a dangerous race to the bottom. Romney is already insisting that he would have ordered the same killing.
Former and current Seal members criticized the President for using the operation in a political ad. Here is the commercial that ran in the last week:
The concerted attack appears to be based on Romney’s statement in 2007 that he believe that it was “not worth moving heaven and earth … just trying to catch one person.” That was a reasonable statement and one that many in the military appeared to agree with.
The use of the killing of Bin Laden as a campaign trophy is as unfair to Romney, unseemly of Obama, and unbecoming to the presidency. The President’s remarks this afternoon should be condemned by every citizen regardless of party affiliation.
Here is the press conference:
This whole thing is very weird because we don’t even know what really happened. There are several stories about the killing put out by the administration. Which is true? We don’t really know.
The compound had been under surveillance for months. Whoever was killed was an old man and there was no return fire. We did crash a helicopter though so I guess that’s a good campaign commercial!
Seriously, It is disconcerting to see people on this blog talk about how it was so great that Obama did this. Why? So he got some campaign points? This is not a good thing for citizens to want from a “leader”.
We we need to be better people. To take pride in killing others is normally not considered a good quality in any person, let alone a “leader”.
It is unseemly for the President to tout the OBL killing. He’s got plenty of minions to wield that political cudgel. -Nal
I agree.
Izb1, youre absolutely right. If it had failed that would be one of the repubs major ads about the failure.
Obama does not need to appeal to the democratic base. He has the base locked up. Most of the base is against the expansion of war. Polling confirms this. He is appealing to independents in seven states.
This is exactly what Glenn Greenwald was writing about the other day. Democrats love their “warrior” president. He’s playing to his base and it’s working.
I do not understand what it is about killing that is supposed to make any president a great man. I think our citizens need to take a look into why we want a guy who brags about killing as a “leader”. That does not seem to be a wise choice. It’s a mindset which allows people to stomp and clap for a war criminal. It is a real statement about our society. It’s really time to stop cheering and excusing and loving brutality.
Everytime the subject of bin laden is spoke about the President acknowledges the men and woman who made it possible and did the mission. But it is a fact of command, that ultimate responsibility for success or failure rests with the commander. In no way does that dimminish the work, and especially the sacrafice of those who actually go in harms way. You can be sure if the mission had gone wrong Obama would have gotten all the blame even if it wasn’t his doing.
Anyone who does not recognize he made tough call – think Jimmy Carter – is really living in delusion. That some in the decision process were against it – including Gates – underscores this was not an open and shut case. The facts are there that while the Republicans were in command just about every decision was wrong and it has cost a trillion dollars and thousands of lives. The had their chance to go for him and the didn’t.
Eisenhower penned this note prior to D-day in case it failed.
“Our landings have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
” … are eager to drag the body of Bin Laden behind the presidential limo to every possible campaign stop.”
graphic
nobody likes my squirrel story?
It is unseemly for the President to tout the OBL killing. He’s got plenty of minions to wield that political cudgel. Obama needs to get his political act together, it’s always been his weakness.
“Unfair to Romney”? Just ask Santorum and Gingrich how fair Romney’s SUPERPACS have been. They destroy the opposition with no mercy, whatsoever.
When you contend with savage murderers who will kill nations for greed and destroy their own country for a few dollars more, you would have to be self destructive not to use the tools at hand. The Bush Crime Family has damned near destroyed this country in their lusts for power and wealth and yet many give no quarter to the man that inherited the mess. Is success always about “what have you done for me lately”?
I think he made a valid point…. Based upon what has been stated so far….
1zb1,
You hit the nail on the head. When the Republicans claim that Obama has given in to the terrorists and that he was/is weak on defense, isn’t he allowed to respond?
But it was okay for Bush to use the burning embers? Romeny said what Bush had said, not worth the effort (paraphrasing so dont jump on me please.)
I dont like that in my name we kill people but this was a ‘success’ of his administration, he went after the right person behind 9/11 as opposed to the thousands of troops, US and allied, who died fighting the war Bush lied us into on the premise Hussein was behind 9/11. People only complained about the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner because the mission was not accomplished. I do not recall a hue and cry because he was using that war to help his own political ends.
This makes we want to throw up. Have we forgotten about the thousands of people who gave up their lives to put President Obama in the position, after eleven years of struggle and sacrifice, to make a decision that ANY level headed American, let alone president, would have made? To make this a reason to vote for Obama is so crass as to reveal for me, for the first time, really, how truly shallow and narcissistic Mr. Obama has become. He has become such a Statist. Apparently we now owe everything to him. Here’s for renaming the Louisiana Purchase “Obama’s Bargain.”
The incumbent touts his successes and has the temerity to selectively quote his challenger. My goodness gracious!
Is this, by any chance the first election season you have experienced?
CBS News) PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — Seeking to neutralize one of President Obama’s recent arguments, Mitt Romney said on Monday that “of course” he would have ordered military forces to make the 2011 raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden.
Asked by a reporter during an appearance here whether he would have gone after the al-Qaida leader, Romney responded: “Of course.” He was then asked if he would have given the specific order to kill bin Laden.
“Of course,” he said. “Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.”
Apropos of the “imperial presidency,” see Tom Engelhardt’s most recent essay (“The Obama Contradiction”), here:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175535/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_a_global-profiling_president/
Excerpts:
“At the moment, the president is in the process of widening his around-the-clock “covert” air campaigns. Almost unnoted in the U.S., for instance, American drones recently carried out a strike in the Philippines killing 15 and the Air Force has since announced a plan to boost its drones there by 30%. At the same time, in Yemen, as previously in the Pakistani borderlands, the president has just given the CIA and the U.S. Joint Operations Command the authority to launch drone strikes not just against identified “high-value” al-Qaeda “targets,” but against general “patterns of suspicious behavior.” So expect an escalating drone war there not against known individuals, but against groups of suspected evildoers (and as in all such cases, innocent civilians as well).
This is another example of something that would be forbidden at home, but is now a tool of unchecked presidential power elsewhere in the world: profiling.”
[…]
“This is a dangerous development, which leaves us in the grip — for now — of what might be called the Obama conundrum. At home, on issues of domestic importance, Obama is a hamstrung, hogtied president, strikingly checked and balanced. Since the passage of his embattled healthcare bill, he has, in a sense, been in chains, able to accomplish next to nothing of his domestic program. Even when trying to exercise the unilateral powers that have increasingly been invested in presidents, what he can do on his own has proven exceedingly limited, a series of tiny gestures aimed at the largest of problems. And were Mitt Romney to be elected, given congressional realities, this would be unlikely to change in the next four years.
On the other hand, the power of the president as commander-in-chief has never been greater. If Obama is the president of next to nothing on the domestic policy front (but fundraising for his second term), he has the powers previously associated with the gods when it comes to war-making abroad. There, he is the purveyor of life and death. At home, he is a hamstrung weakling, at war he is — to use a term that has largely disappeared since the 1970s — an imperial president.
Such contradictions call for resolution and that should worry us all.”
TalkinDog,
I have remarkable news. My house has been smelling for the past day or two. One guy smelled the stench and left. The next guy I hired just came finally today. What happened was the following, as I understand it:
Mamma squirrel took a header directly into the pipe that goes down above my boiler. The pipes next to her must have slowly warmed the corpse after she died. Now all that is very sad. But there is a bright side to this story.
A little bright eyed squirrel stuck its head out of the horizontal portion of the pipe. Seconds later, Baby squirrel number two popped out its head on top of its sibling. I coaxed little squirrel number one out with water on a spoon which it happily drank. Then, as it got to trusting me more, I managed to get it out as it sniffed the fresh air of my laundry room. I took squirrel 1 outside
Now baby squirrel number two was a different story, It would not come out. What I had to was find squirrel one, which was not very hard as the poor thing was waiting outside the door for its sibling, I pick squirrel one back up and take him to see his brother. Squirrel number two finally sticks his head back out after which my buddy Juan grabs him and we take them both outside, put ’em in a box with water for the county to pick up. Personally I’d keep them as pets but my housemates object. They are safe and sound waiting for Animal Control. I hope they don’t die without Mama. They look so scared.
The moral of the story is to check the grating on top of your chimney every year because that is how they got in in the first place. The boiler vents to the chimney. I am going to have it replaced ASAP.
Yeah, so while Republicans were pushing isolation prior to WW2 and FDR was doing his best to prepare for war and helping the British we should not point that out.
Or what about the fact Romney and the republicans have been attacking Obama on everything he has done in foreign policy – and proven wrong in each case – we shouldn’t point that out either?
So every problem is Obama’s fault and every thing right is off limits?
How about Romney, another classic Republican chicken-hawk beating a rush to war with other people’s children while he was a draft dodger in France during Vietnam?
Let me also mention Romney referenced Carter to suggest even he would have made the attack. That’s both an outragous misrepresentation of facts and political dirt of the worst kind. Carter actually ordered an attempted resuce of the iran hostages, and Carter actually served 20 years in the Navy.
It seems to me the only thing Romney is running for is Whiner-in-Chief. The people of America need to know that. People need to know the mess created by the Republicans and all they want is more of the same.