Honesty

Monday, April 30th, 2012

Inspired by Mitt Romney’s comments on the President’s decision to send Seal Team Six in after Bin Laden.

It’s easy looking back

To be an armchair quarterback.

When someone makes a difficult decision

It’s easy to take the self-serving position

And boldly claim

You’d have done the same.

But doing the right thing hypothetically

And them claiming credit for it (pathetically)

Does not justify the credit you take

Or you a better potential leader make.

What defines an actual leader

(As opposed to a self-serving bottom feeder)

Is admitting you don’t know for sure if you’d have made the tough call,

Betting your Presidency to do what’s right, then letting the chips fall.

I think Clinton would have given that order, and Carter too.

But Mitt: I’m not so sure about you.

 ***

I’ve always liked Bill Clinton (I once waited in line for most of the night in order to get a ticket for one of his book signings), but this comment made me respect him even more.

It’s hard to be President, particularly when the time comes to make this kind of decision (the famous “3:00 a.m.call”). Yet this year’s GOP presidential field repeatedly threw out casual one-liners about going to war. Romney himself “guaranteed” that Iran won’t get a nuke if he’s elected but will if Obama is, and rants about how the economy would be so much better if he’d been President. Really?

Honesty is difficult, particularly when dealing with hypotheticals. It’s easy to tell ourselves (and others) that we would have had the courage to do the right thing in a given situation, or to not do the wrong one. It takes an honest may to admit that he might not have.

And by the way, Mitt, President Carter did give the order to send in Special Forces to rescue the U.S. hostages in Iran. He too risked his Presidency to save Americans, but lost that bet and the election. Reagan, of course, used the mission’s failure against Carter politically, as I’m sure you would have done if the Bin Laden mission had failed. So don’t badmouth Carter, Mitt, when based on the backbone you’ve shown in your political career, you wouldn’t even have had the guts to do what he did.

Tags: Bill Clinton, Bin Laden, Mitt Romney, National security, Obama, Terrorism
Posted in Democrats, National Security, Republicans | 1 Comment »