Posts Tagged ‘Books’

Doing His Job

Sunday, April 29th, 2012

Our Bin Laden series continues, inspired by ‘Manhunt’ details U.S. mission to find Osama bin Laden (Karen DeYoung, Washington Post 4/28/12), Obama campaign implies that Mitt Romney would not have killed Osama bin Laden (WashingtonPost.com 4/27/12), Assessing al-Quada a year after bin Laden (Greg Miller, Washington Post 4/29/12 A1), and the new Obama campaign Bin Laden commercial.

 

“It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” — Mitt Romney

 

“The downside would have been horrible for him… He took the harder and the more honorable path, and the one that produced in my opinion the best result… He had to decide, and that’s what you hire a President to do. You hire the President to make the calls when no one else can do it” — Bill Clinton

 

Obama could have ordered a drone strike or a bombing run–

Either might have gotten the job done.

 

But that “might” is just the problem:

We just wouldn’t know for sure if we’d got’m.

 

In addition, if Obama had taken the easier route,

We would’ve on the intelligence treasure trove missed out.

 

Obama put his political career at risk to do the right thing,

And Osama Bin Laden to justice to bring.

 

In addition to risking his own political career with that decision,

Obama also risked the lives of those who carried out the mission.

 

That’s their job, and they do it without hesitation,

For which they deserve our admiration.

 

It’s also the Commander-in-Chief’s job, and what keeps Presidents up at night:

To make those calls without regard to political impact if things don’t go right.

 

It’s a job that requires more ability to compartmentalize than most of us possess,

An area in which President Obama continues to impress.

 

It’s a tough job, and Obama came through.

Mr. Romney, I have to ask: would you?

 

Or, Mr. Romney, would you see your job

As doing whatever it took to keep your job?

***

Here’s the Obama campaign’s new “One Chance” Bin Laden commercial that the right wing is so up in arms about. The issue, however, isn’t just what Romney’s answer would have been to the simple yes-or-no question “here’s Bin Laden; do you want to kill him?” It took years of preparation and resources (which Mitt Romney said wasn’t worth it) just to get to that point, and then it wasn’t just a question of whether or not to go, but when and how to go. As described in the article ‘Manhunt’ details U.S. mission to find Osama bin Laden and the book it summarizes, Obama’s advisors (including Sec. Def. Gates and VP Biden) recommended options (e.g. the drone strike) with lower risk, but also lower value, since we wouldn’t know for sure if Bin Laden had been killed, nor would we have been able to reap any of the intelligence bonanza that the raid was able to.

 

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