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The Spectacle Blog
John Guardiano took the words right out of my mouth with his headline, “Obama’s Latest Campaign Stop: Kabul, Afghanistan”.
President Obama’s address to the troops would have been fine on its own. But the fact that it comes while his campaign is asserting that Mitt Romney would not have authorized the raid which resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden cheapens both the occasion and the office of the presidency. Our troops deserve better than to be used as political props by President Obama.
As former Attorney General Michael Mukasey noted in The Wall Street Journal, we would have never seen this sort of behavior from Dwight Eisenhower or Abraham Lincoln, whom Obama is fond of quoting and, for that matter, George W. Bush, whom Obama is not fond of quoting.
Mukasey also notes that if the operation had failed the buck would not have stopped with President Obama. There would have been a fall guy. In this case, it would have been left to Admiral William McRaven, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, to fall on his sword:
A recently disclosed memorandum from then-CIA Director Leon Panetta shows that the president’s celebrated derring-do in authorizing the operation included a responsibility-escape clause: “The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out.”
Which is to say, if the mission went wrong, the fault would be Adm. McRaven’s, not the president’s.
So much for that “new era of responsibility” President Obama spoke about when he was inaugurated. It seems to me that President Obama has a different understanding of what responsibility means than most of us. For Obama, when things go wrong he takes none of the blame and when things go right he takes all of the credit. It is the sort of thing you can expect of someone who thinks the world around him.
President Obama simply does not grasp that there’s no “I” in Team Six.
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More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/02/theres-no-i-in-team-six
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Hank| 5.2.12 @ 12:42PM
Um, actually there is an "i" in "Team Six." Right between the "s" and the "x."
Aaron Goldstein| 5.2.12 @ 12:53PM
There's no "I".
albert constantine jr.| 5.2.12 @ 1:21PM
Given the Obama administration's recently revealed penchant for crucifying its targets in the "Roman Way" as a method of enforcement, perhaps if you consider Team XI, you will find the "I" you missed, but POTUS was aware of (and in the house for).
Cpm| 5.2.12 @ 7:06PM
VI
albert constantine jr.| 5.2.12 @ 8:32PM
Thank you for catching my earlier error hours before I did. Sic gloria transit mundi, but your mistakes last forever.
Ted| 5.2.12 @ 3:07PM
Okay, so I got what you were saying Aaron... But I still had to laugh because at first glance I thought the same thing Hank did... Uh, yeah, there is an i in there... :)
The thing you have to remember about our President, is that it is all about him, all the time, every day, and in every way....
Bob S| 5.3.12 @ 12:51AM
Yeah he meant it the same way as if it was just "There's no I in team". See, it's a pun.
TLP| 5.3.12 @ 9:29AM
You are correct. there is no I.
But as a different Black Boy, who "If I had a son, he would look like him", once said, in the Movie: The Bad News Bears - "There's an M and an E, and that spells ME."
And, p.s. - The REASON you don't have a Son, is that "It takes a MAN to make a BOY."
And you are no MAN.
Not even close.
Clint| 5.2.12 @ 1:00PM
" Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA's) Osama bin Laden unit, told the U.K. Daily Telegraph in a recent interview he was prevented from capturing or killing the terrorist by his superiors on at least 10 separate occasions.
In 1995, Scheuer was selected to lead the spy agency’s bin Laden efforts. By then the militant Islamist was exiled in Sudan after angering Saudi authorities. Bin Laden was running several businesses in the African nation that Scheuer suggested disrupting. “We formulated operations and submitted them for approval but they would not approve any of them,” the ex-CIA official told the Daily Telegraph. “If we had been able to deal a serious economic blow it could have been a show-stopper.”
Scheuer told the Telegraph that following the missed opportunities to kill or capture bin Laden in 1998, there were at least eight other chances to get the terror mastermind. By that point, bin Laden was supposedly among the U.S. government’s most wanted criminals. But for some unknown reason, senior officials refused to authorize his capture or assassination.
“One 50-cent round could have put us all out of our agony,” Scheuer explained. But that didn’t happen, as high-level authorities consistently ordered the CIA unit not to stop bin Laden."
Dittohead| 5.2.12 @ 1:58PM
Damn right you wouldn't have seen this behavior from W. If he were still president (like he should be) we would have been busy invading the rest of the Middle East like we should be instead instead of tracking down Osama, who was yesterday's news anyway.
Occam's Tool| 5.2.12 @ 1:58PM
The Romney campaign needs to publicize the letter and the weasel language. What a brave man our POYUS isn't.
PCC| 5.3.12 @ 9:32AM
I am genuinely shocked at the content of the above-cited memo and it makes President Obama's victory lap all the more despicable. No matter one's political views, a man of such low character should not serve as president of any self-respecting country, especially the U.S.
Mike 3/505| 5.2.12 @ 2:18PM
What is a real shame, is that in his inexperience at leading, he doesn't understand an old leadership fundamental...Praise your subordinates lavishly when there is success. Others will then praise you. You don't need to do it yourself.
Bill| 5.2.12 @ 3:51PM
Obama's world: Michelle and Obama, government, big labors, OWS, Muslim Brotherhood, socialism, and AMIGOS.
David W| 5.2.12 @ 6:04PM
Perhaps no "I" in Team Six, but there sure are two in idiot, which Obama must be.
Mick Lee| 5.3.12 @ 7:07AM
Yes, there is no "I" in "team; but there is "me".