Obama Should Get A Black Eye Along With The Credit For Bin Laden
“The United States is now the gang that can shoot straight,” writes a fawning Roger Simon. “We have seen Obama be the professor in chief and the orator in chief. Now he is the warrior in chief.”
Our reputation for being able to carry out successful military missions has been in some doubt ever since former President George W. Bush stood under a ridiculous “Mission Accomplished” banner during the Iraq War, a mission that he did not accomplish in a war that he did not win.
But President Barack Obama managed to kill Osama bin Laden on Sunday, using a small special operations force, and in so doing, he sent a clear message to terrorists everywhere: You’re next.
This is all well and good, I suppose, if you’re a liberal Obama supporter desperate for some sort of leverage point upon which to turn around this flagging and failing administration. But it’s a little humorous to see this rush to push Obama up onto a pedestal.
As much credit as Obama does deserve in making the right choices on the bin Laden operation (and I’ve been clear that he does deserve a great deal of credit) this is a bit embarrassing for the President as well. After all, some of the intelligence that led us to Osama bin Laden was gathered at Guantanamo Bay, a detention facility President Obama wanted to close, probably using interrogation tactics that Obama all but called war crimes at one point.
America won a great victory last night, and Obama played in important roll in that victory, but he did so using intelligence which came from policies he opposed. So with the credit comes a black eye too, I think.