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Thoughts About Obama on Osama on 60 Minutes

By Aaron Goldstein on 5.9.11 @ 10:34AM

I watched the 60 Minutes interview with President Obama last night. While I thought Obama perhaps gave one of his strongest interviews there were several things which jumped out at me.

First, when Steve Kroft asked President Obama if it was his decision to bury Osama bin Laden at sea, he replied, "It was a joint decision."

A joint decision? With whom? Doesn't the buck stop with the President?

Obama went on to say his Administration was "consulting with experts in Islamic law and ritual." But it is one thing for Obama to consult with experts in Islamic law and ritual, it is quite another thing for the President to say that experts in Islamic law and ritual were empowered with executive authority equivalent to the Office of the President of the United States. This also begs the question as to who exactly these experts in Islamic law and ritual are.

Second, when Kroft asked Obama if he didn't trust the Pakistanis, the President replied, "If I'm not revealing to some of my closest aides what we're doin', then I sure as heck am not gonna be revealing it to folks who I don't know." (italics mine)

So is President Obama referring to Pakistan's political leadership or its military? Or both? Whatever the case, it's not as if Obama hasn't met with President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani much less spoken to them over the phone. Obama might not know Pakistan's political leadership as intimately as he knows his closest aides but he does have some kind of working relationship with them. So I don't think President Obama withheld the mission from Pakistan because they were folks he didn't know but precisely because he did know these folks. The fact that bin Laden was located a stone's throw away from, as Salman Rushdie put it, "Pakistan's West Point" illustrates this point. Yet I cannot help but think that if President Bush had given the order he would have been excoriated by the left-wing press for violating Pakistani sovereignty.

Speaking of President Bush I was also struck by Obama's response to Kroft on past operational failures:

No, I mean you think about Black Hawk Down. You think about what happened with the Iranian rescue. And it, you know, I am very sympathetic to the situation for other Presidents where you make a decision, you're making your best call, your best shot, and something goes wrong -- because these are tough, complicated operations. And yeah, absolutely. The day before I was thinkin' about this quite a bit.

Obama then went on to say:

(A)s outstanding a job as our intelligence teams did -- and I cannot praise them enough they did an extraordinary job with just the slenderest of bits of information to piece this all together -- at the end of the day, this was still a 55/45 situation. I mean, we could not say definitively that bin Laden was there. Had he not been there, then there would have been significant consequences.

Back in October 2009, when President Obama was contemplating whether to increase our troop presence in Afghanistan, he spoke to our troops at the Jacksonville Naval Station and said:

While I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, I also promise you this - and this is very important as we consider our next steps in Afghanistan: I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way. I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary.

Of course, the President of the United States doesn't have the luxury of always knowing when it is absolutely necessary to act. Not only is the President faced with "a 55/45 situation" he is often faced with situations where he has far fewer facts to work with which nonetheless require him to make a decision that could risk the lives of our military personnel. So when President Obama said he was "sympathetic to the situation for other Presidents" I hope he meant Bush. I hope this means that Obama will cut Bush a little more slack and be more generous towards him about the decisions he had to make with the informaton that was available to him. But this is wishful thinking on my part. Given that we are already into the 2012 campaign season, President Obama will invariably trot out Bush on the campaign trail. The chances of that situation coming to pass is 100%, not 55/45.

View all comments (8) | Leave a comment

carol| 5.9.11 @ 11:14AM

I guess the man in the man child came out for a moment or week. He is on 60 minutes for an hour Ok enough My husband thought it was his BEST moment. I say hs is a Marxist and will always be one. Pray for security and a strong constitutionaL conservative candidate to beat him.

Wayne | 5.9.11 @ 11:17AM

I could care less if Obama cuts Bush a little slack. I don't understand the need some on the right feel to see a "reformed" Obama. How about just replacing him in 2012.

solidground| 5.9.11 @ 11:38AM

Yes, Obama always looks good in a friendly, stage-managed arena, such as all of those supposed "town halls" that trot out legions of local Obama sycophants. And what could be friendlier or more stage-managed than 60 minutes? It was no more than one more stop on his victory lap. Oh, and he'll never give Bush any credit for anything. Obama has neither the class nor the humility to admit that his convenient political punching bag and bogeyman had it more or less right all along.

Dan| 5.9.11 @ 12:17PM

"[J]oint decision?"

Check out the White House insider over at Newsflavor, who reported that Obama dumped the whole decision on Panetta's lap, which left him as the scapegoat if it all went south.

Now that's just a brief summation of what the insider had to offer, rest assured, the real details of what he reported are altogether alarming.

For instance, Jarrett was applying the brakes to the whole operation;

2} Jarrett proposed the ground op simply as a device for gaining more time to delay the overall op;

3} The op wasn't delayed for 16 hours, but for over 16 weeks;

4} Daly had to have a closed door meeting with Jarret, after which she LEFT THE WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS, during the 24 hour period prior to the mission;

5} Obama didn't "approve" the op, rather, he was INFORMED the op had been given a GO, and when he was told that, he was looking stunned, confused and desperately searching around for Jarrett;

6} What happened was the chain of command was short circuited, so as to enable Gates, Clinton, Daly and Panetta to authorize the operation.

We're talking a real live disaster, which of course, the media has NO interest in pursuing.

Lastly, ------------------ the overall lack of a single commander spilled out in the aftermath where everybody was out there spinning one scenario after another, which is why we got so many different accounts of how the op went down. Again, the passive president, the by-stander at his own presidency, did not give overall direction, so in that vacum, others stepped in.

JimH| 5.9.11 @ 1:26PM

Joint decision? Maybe after he smoked one.

glenny| 5.9.11 @ 1:35PM

Joint decision????? Obama and WHO THE HELL ELSE made that decision???? glenny

Dan| 5.9.11 @ 3:12PM

Seems like Obama had as much of a role in this as he did in the stimulas.

He's a guy who is amazingly as much a spectator of his administration as are the rest of us. The insider reported that Obama REFUSED to take a position for or against the op, for or against preparing for the op, for or against the CIA following up their leads in prep for an op.

No position at all.

And Jarrett was all along the one presenting every reason under the sun while NOTHING should be done with the info. And while she was doing that, every eye looked to the Pres for indication one way or the other, and he just sat there or left the room.

Which is par for the course with him anymore.

But I suppose it's akin to birtherism to follow up on that.

Liberal Reader| 5.9.11 @ 2:03PM

No doubt Obama will "trot out" Bush during the next campaign -- but that will be about domestic economic issues.

I think Obama has changed his tune about Bush when it comes to foreign policy since he's become president. (I think this isn't so unusual. )

I think Obama gave Bush proper credit. He invited him to visit Ground Zero. Bush refused, as was his right. I don't really see the problem here. Unless you're listening to bone-headed talk radio programs, I think most people are acknowledging Bush's role in getting bin Laden -- and Obama's. Anyone who thinks they don't both deserve our gratitude is just being perverse; anyone who doesn't see just how much Obama put on the line with this operation doesn't know what he's talking about.