re: #472 lightspeed

Sorry, can’t give the President much credit here. According to current information, his orders were to NOT DO ANYTHING provocative unless the hostage was about to be killed (“imminent danger”). Had the pirates not stepped out into the open (apparently) with guns pointing at the Captain, they would still be out there drifting at sea negotiating with the FBI.

And another thing: one thought being expressed over at Kos, for example, is that Obama put himself on the line by authorizing the use of force, because if the whole thing had gone bad, the snipers missed their mark, the hostage was killed, etc., then we’d all be blaming Obama.

I’m not entirely sure that would have been the case. Did anyone actually hear him announcing that he had authorized a takedown before it happened? Not that he should have made that public, of course. But seeing as he didn’t… Obama has done many things in his career, some of them very well. But I’ve never known him to take responsibility for any of his mistakes. It’s quite possible that, if the mission had gone bad, he would have just thrown the commander under the famous Obama bus. “I am deeply concerned by what appears to be a reckless use of force by the U.S. military, which has resulted in the needless escalation of a situation that could have been solved by peaceful negotiations, and the needless death of an American citizen. I did not order this aggressive act, and I pledge that I will investigate it and ensure that the officers who were responsible will be relieved of duty.”

Again, let’s give credit where credit is due. But when you spend your whole life being a spineless weasel who shirks responsibility for your misdeeds, then you need to work a little harder to deserve credit when things go well.