Monday, April 30, 2012

Putting the Cart Before the Hearse



Surely the greatest - and come to think of it, the only - accomplishment of the Obama administration was the killing of Osama bin Laden. And now, on the one year anniversary of the terrorist leader's execution, Team Obama is doing everything short of carrying Osama's rotting, bullet-ridden head around on a pike in order to tell people that this bold and dangerous military mission could only have been pulled off by one man.

And of course, that man is...Admiral McRaven.


What - you thought Obama was behind everything? Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! No, no - as the photos from the situation room clearly show, Barry had to be dragged off a golf course the day of the mission so he could be photographed watching a computer monitor in the same room as a lot of grown-ups.

But a contemporaneous memo written by Leon Panetta makes it clear who was really in charge - and who would have taken it in the neck had the mission failed. Admiral McRaven was in charge of "the timing, operational decision making, and control" of the mission...meaning the only thing left for Obama to do was order finger foods for the situation room.

The memo also makes clear that McRaven's mission was simply to "get" Osama - which could mean killing, could mean capturing, and could (and probably does) mean that Obama never made a decision ("gutsy" or otherwise) on which option should be exercised. But wiggle room was built into Obama's "go ahead" which would have allowed him to crucify McRaven if anything went wrong...instead of making the Admiral invisible when everything went right.


But the fiction of Obama's deep involvement in the mission isn't standing in the way of perfectly good campaign grandstanding. Team Obama has just released a jaw-dropping commercial which asserts that if Romney had been president, he wouldn't have made the call to take down Bin Laden. And the ever-amusing Joe Biden hit the stump to proclaim that "GM is alive, and Osama is dead" because of Barack Obama...and under Romney, "the reverse" might be true.

Politicizing the death of Osama bin Laden (and therefore 9/11) is reprehensible beyond words, and is made even worse by the fact that Barack Obama and his toadies are lying through their teeth about who really deserves the credit.

Barack Hussein Obama did not order, plan, control, or supervise the mission to kill Osama. And God knows he didn't put his life - or his golf game - on the line.


He was simply "present."



BONUS: Click on poster for a big, downloadable version!
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22 comments:

Coon Tasty said...

That poster is missing a few things, e.g. unicorns, elves, credible ethnic minority supporters of the Obama regime, etc.

Angry Hoosier Dad said...

Somebody forgot to tell SCOAMF that just showing up is only half the battle. He thinks it's the whole war.

Stan da Man said...

Coon - is it just me, or does "credible ethnic minority supporters" sound like a male foundation garment for 'small' guys of color? Or maybe some kind of "Man-Zeer"?

Suzy said...

The saddest thing of all is that Obama is still fooling about 45% of the country. What a fiasco.

Its also annoying that he ran in 2008 on the premise of hating the Bush war....and then...not only did he not end the Bush war...but NOW he's running on the premise that he reached Bush's ultimate goal all by his little self. Wow.

John the Econ said...

It's always been my belief that we've had a positive lock on Bin Laden for the better part of the last 10 years. His movements and communications were well monitored, allowing us to efficiently identify and neutralize much of Al Qaeda. Do remember that there were few successful Al Qaeda operations after 911, and that most of his closest associates and network were taken out in relatively short order, leaving only Bin Laden. There are likely many attacks planned that we'll never hear about.

This likely would not have happened as easily had Bin Laden been taken out as soon as he was located. It would have been big political points for Bush had he taken him out in summer or fall of 2004, or helpful for McCain in 2008. But Bush was far too selfless to do that, knowing that Bin Laden was more useful to us alive.

That Obama took him out either demonstrates that either Obama doesn't care, or that Al Qaeda as a top-down organization no longer exists and Bin Laden was no longer useful as a source of intelligence. And since the Democrats have made it politically impossible to capture and put to trial pretty much any "enemy combatant", the decision to terminate was a relatively easy one.

As for helping Obama come election time, I wouldn't worry much about it. Not even the lemmings take Obama seriously as a military leader. And remember that George Bush (41) was riding high from recently winning Gulf War I, and that couldn't save him from broken his "new new taxes" pledge and the subsequent "worst economy since the depression", as Bill Clinton characterized it.

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@Coon Tasty- Seal Team Six has a standing policy of not allowing unicorns on missions. But like "Don't ask, Don't tell," Obama hopes to change the policy soon.

@Angry Hoosier Dad- From my understanding he didn't even "show up" - he had to have his scrawny butt dragged into the situation room.

@Stan da Man- That's a great (and funny) concept.

@Suzy- Obama offers up plenty of contradictions. Which is, perhaps, why the media "simplifies" things to keep voters from getting confused.

@John the Econ- I'm inclined to go with your theory that Bin Laden had reached a point of diminishing returns, and was worth more as a trophy than an information source. This might explain why slaphappy Joe Biden immediately told the world that we grabbed all of Osama's computers and harddrives and were getting loads of information from them - which would, of course, be USELESS information if you told the bad guys you had it.

And like you, I doubt that Osama's death will buy Obama many votes. This singular action doesn't translate to any other scenarios, and Obama's foreign policy and clear dislike of the military still stink to high heaven.

John the Econ said...

@Stilton, the only possible explanation of Joe Biden is Joe Biden. You give him far too much credit for having the judgement to know what to divulge and what not to.

To be sure, the only thing useful on those hard drives was probably the porno, providing numerous government agencies something else to pay attention other than their actual jobs.

Speaking of: Did you hear the administrations solution to Secret Service bad behavior? Chaperons! Seriously!

The Secret Service, who supposedly are supposed to be the "adults" on trips overseas, will now be chaperoned like high school kids. This is the intellect of your federal government that wishes to manage your life.

My question is: Who will chaperon the chaperons?

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@John the Econ- The "chaperone" plan is idiotic and emblematic of government thinking: rather than insisting on people you can trust, you hire another layer of people to watch. And as you suggest, there's no logical end to the progression.

Mike Porter said...

John the Econ: I've always suspect the same thing, and I as well agree that if Bush is the stand-up kind of guy I believe him to be, then I'm pretty sure there wasn't even the temptation to screw it up for political points.

Stilton: Actually, there is a logical end to that progression - the insolvency of America. And the damned bureaucrats will probably figure out a way to feed off of the carcass for quite some time after that.

Colby said...

Who wants to take my bet? When it is getting closer to the election and H.R.H. sees his poll numbers in the dumpster, the photos of room temperature Bin Laden will miraculously become public. He'll forget all about that whole "inciting retrobution" thing when he sees his four year vacation coming to a screeching halt.

John the Econ, Chaperones? Are you serious? Great googley moogley! How would you feel if you were a kick-ass Secret Service agent and some moron told you you had to have a freaking chaperone? Only our idiodic gubmint could come up with something like this.

John the Econ said...

Does anyone else find it ironic/moronic that Bill Clinton would be putting in his 2-cents regarding Obama killing Bin Laden? I forgot; exactly how many times did Bill have the opportunity to pull that trigger? How many tens-of-thousands might still be alive today if he had?

@Colby, yes, I am serious. (http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/national_world&id=8640276) Will the adults in the administration please stand up?

Isn't this why East Germany collapsed? Everyone was employed watching everyone else; nobody was left to do any actual work.

Colby said...

@Suzy,
He also called Bush unpatriotic and un-American for accumulationg $4 trillion in debt over 8 year's time using a credit card from China. I hope Romney plays that video clip over and over and over and over and....

Suzy said...

Colby....very true. :-(

I would also be seriously interested in the helicopter "accident" taking out half of the Seal Team not a month after the killing of Bin Laden, as well as interested in why it was buried in the media quite fast, and why not ONE photo of Bin Laden has been released (as opposed to the photos of Saddam).

As I keep saying...Obama loves his secrets.

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@Mike Porter- I also can't imagine Bush putting politics ahead of doing what he believed to be right. The man had flaws (who doesn't?) but I don't think character or lack of genuine patriotism were among them.

And you're right, an insolvent America is the logical conclusion to the illogical progression of hiring watchers to watch the watchers.

@Colby- I've opined for a long time that the photos of Osama are being saved until they can do the Bamster the most political good. He doesn't need them now, with all of the MSM doing anniversary shows about the killing. But we'll definitely see the pictures leaked before election day.

@John the Econ- You have a gift for salting my open wounds! Bill Clinton just recorded a campaign ad praising B. Hussein for "making the tough call" on the mission to kill Osama, and said that he hoped he'd have had the courage to make that call, too.

Well here's a newsflash for you, president blowjob - you DID have the opportunity to take Osama out, and didn't bother to. And you had him offered to us giftwrapped on more than one occasion and said "no" because you were more interested in dipping your wick. So STFU, scumbag.

@Colby- Yes, but Bush ran up that debt because of silly old 9/11, while Obama had to cope with the more serious problem of a bad inheritance.

@Suzy- I'm disinclined to think that the helicopter accident which killed the Seals is part of a conspiracy; these brave guys live in harm's way and bad things sometimes happen.

But regarding the lack of pictures of Bin Laden, I do have trust issues and would like to see them - even though so much time has passed that no pictures will have real credibility anymore owing to the possibility of photoshopping.

Although today's picture of Obama in the flying golf cart is real.

Gang of One said...

@ Stilton and all you usual suspects -- this is too delicious.
How do you say in English Schadenfreude?

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/30/huffington-slams-obama-osama-ad/#more-792366

Suzy said...

Not to argue...but...IF the Bin Laden thing isn't real...then its possible they wanted to reduce the risk of the Seals telling anything.

I'm not a huge conspiracy person...but somebody had to have either set up those guys, or at the very least, been a traitor and given them away, for whoever did the bombing to have known that particular helicopter was where they were.

It could have just been revenge, but if revenge, our soldiers should have been better protected.

If if was a silencing...well...our country is in worse trouble than we even thought.

John the Econ said...

Just heard Obama on the radio say that he doesn't think there's been excessive celebrating over the Osama killing anniversary. Um, wasn't it his campaign putting out the Bill Clinton campaign ad?

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@Gang of One- Great link, and it gets even better. Now there are Navy Seals coming forward to criticize Obama for playing politics with this.

@Suzy- I wish I could say that I thought these speculative thoughts were impossible, but under this president...

Mind you, I'm not saying I subscribe to a conspiracy theory. Just that I wish I felt that there were some depths to which Obama wouldn't sink.

@John the Econ- Not only did Obama's campaign put out the ad, but Obama personally made the accusation today that Romney wouldn't have given the order to take down Bin Laden. I don't think you can get more political and less presidential than that.

But I think he's overplayed his hand here, and may get some blowback. Ironically, if Obama was using this anniversary to be humble while praising the troops and intelligence people who really pulled off the mission, it would make him look much better.

John the Econ said...

Happy Mayday everyone! Take a few moments and watch what is taking place in Europe today. Pay special attention to interviews of economically illiterate spoiled-brat citizens as they complain about their freebies being cut by what few adults remain.

This is our not-so-distant future.

Comanche Voter said...

I looked at the photo. Coulldn't see that "big stick" that Biden was talking about. Maybe Biden mean the Callawy Big Bertha driver in Obama's bag.

pryorguy said...

Suzy, you said the 'campaigner-in-chief' is STILL fooling 45% of the country...makes sense...that's about how many people there are that DO NOT PAY ATTENTION to what is going on!At least that many!

Stan da Man said...

@Pyro, you discredit those who ARE paying attention, and LIKE it!
a) devoted commies, who are thinking 'more, faster'
b) devoted 'takers' who only see goodies today flooding their way, not concerned what happens when the "ship of state" implodes and they are left w/ NO skills, NO housing, NO food stamps, sure as HELL no "health care" and NO pity as it's THEIR FAULT we can't even guard the borders well enough to keep the Chupacabras out, much less the Mexican Slavers.

Eff the rich, Eat the POOR - there's more of 'em, and they're better marbled (and no one complains when they're gone)

"But, but, it was all for The CHILLLLLDDDDRRREEEEENNNNN!!!!!"
Single best illustration of the adage about 'the road to Hell'