I’ll bet most of you liberals out there think I would never praise Obama, no matter what he does. Well, you are (mostly) wrong.
For just a moment, I will sit down on the edge of the most recent media bandwagon and admit that his decision to send the Navy SEALs in to kill Osama bin Laden was the right thing to do – only with caveats.
It’s not that I can’t see the good things Obama does. It’s just that the policies of a man who is leading the march toward socialism, diminishing our standing in the world, and who is more interested in playing golf and getting re-elected than serving the people are such easy targets.
And besides, in this case, he really had no choice.
Obama, if nothing else, is great at self serving politics. What else could he do when the military and intelligence services dropped this ball in his lap? Not to nab Osama bin Laden, when given the chance, would have been political suicide. The only really tough decision was how to do it.
This is where Obama’s self serving political acumen actually served the country. It was the right decision, from a foreign policy standpoint, to initiate action where a body would be recovered. But it also, as luck would have it, served the best interests of a president desperate to shore up falling poll numbers and looking for some way to show courage and resolve in the face of … well, anything at all.
So he did it, and it worked. Now he can claim a foreign policy success riding the coattails of the military and the policies of his predecessor, both of which he has spent years trying to undermine.
But Obama being Obama, never drifts far from his self serving tendencies.
His initial speech, announcing the killing, was nothing more than another Obama campaign speech. But just to make sure I am not being unfairly harsh, lets compare it to President George W. Bush’s speech announcing the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Bush’s speech was a short, 500 words, and he never claims any responsibility for the capture. The main thrust of his speech is to praise the military and intelligence forces that made the capture possible. The only time he used the word “I” in the speech was when he said he had messages to the people of Iraq and the United States about what this capture meant for them. Read it for yourself at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/wariniraq/gwbushiraq121403.htm.
Obama’s speech was almost three times as long, 1,387 words. Not a problem there since he spent much of that time praising the efforts of the military and intelligence services. But then, on nine different occasions, he just had to brag about the huge role his personal contributions had been to the effort; everything from authorizing and directing the action, to personally establishing clear policies with Pakistan and the world. Again, read it for yourself at: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamaosamabinladendeath.htm.
What a ham.
Then, just to make sure we recognized the old, familiar and somewhat lovable inept administrator he is, we were fed an almost constant stream of conflicting stories of what actually happened at the compound. There was a big firefight, no, they were unarmed. It was a kill mission, no, Osama had the chance to surrender. Bin Laden’s wife was killed after being used as a human shield, no, she was wounded in the leg and never used as a shield.
Come on folks, get your story straight.
Then, liberalism kicks in full bore and Obama announces that he will not release the photos of Bin Laden in death. Why? Because we don’t want to offend the enemy. You know, those same folks that drag American Soldiers through the streets or cut off their heads on camera. We sure don’t want to offend that group, they may try to hurt us.
I don’t buy the basic premise anyway. Are we really to believe that blowing off the back of Bin Laden’s head will inflame the enemy less than pictures of it would?
Instead, consider this option. Since much of the world has no idea what a DNA test is, let’s give them a medium they can all understand. Let’s splash across the front page of every newspaper out there a graphic image of what happens to those who would terrorize America. That would be at least as likely to make them reconsider their evil ways as demonstrating our sense of propriety.
So then, am I worried about an Obama jump in the polls now that he’s become a war hawk thanks to this gift from our military and intelligence community? Not really. Obama remains Obama, and as the weeks go by his leopard spots will reappear, and we will be reminded, once again, who he really is. Like most of you, I was never really fooled anyway.
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