Reposting a quote: Credit where credit is due, and President Obama did the right thing.

Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, the US Naval Forces Central Command chief, said there had been “standing orders” from President Barack Obama “to go ahead and take decisive action” if Phillips “was at risk and we determined that he was under imminent danger.

“Our authorities came directly from the president,” he added, noting that US Navy SEALs were involved in the rescue but that he was unsure which snipers took the shots that killed the three pirates.

“The on-scene commander thought that the captain was in imminent danger and then made that decision, and he had the authority to make that decision and he had seconds to make that decision,” sait Gortney, speaking in a videoconference from the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.

Source - one of 15,000 or so stories in Google news right now.

Now, President Obama, any update on cutting the Navy budget?