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Now we know how Barack Obama would handle a real crisis

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Upon the demise of Osama Bin Laden, Barack Obama was positively ubiquitous. He basked endlessly in the afterglow.

NY Times:

Bin Laden Is Dead, Obama Says

In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that American military and C.I.A. operatives had finally cornered Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, who had eluded them for nearly a decade. American officials said Bin Laden resisted and was shot in the head. He was later buried at sea.

Slate

Barack Obama Killed Osama Bin Laden. Period.

The Republicans have glommed on to a neat rhetorical trick: When Barack Obama does something indisputably admirable or effective, simply pretend that he had nothing to do with it.

This ploy was first trotted out in the aftermath of Moamar Qaddafi’s downfall in Libya, when Obama’s former presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, gave all the credit to the French.

Now Mitt Romney, this year’s presumptive GOP nominee, is waving off Obama’s role in the killing of Osama Bin Laden—the president’s signal national-security achievement—by chortling that “any thinking American would have ordered the exact same thing,” even Jimmy Carter.

HuffPo

52 Reasons to Vote for Obama: #1, Killed Osama Bin Laden

Whether you’re PRObama, NObama, or still undecided, 52 Reasons to Vote for Obama gives you all the information you need to share with friends, debate with relatives and decide for yourself as we head toward one of the most important elections of our lifetime. I’ll post a new reason in random order every Monday through Friday from now ’til the election.

“Thanks to President Obama, bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. You have to ask yourself, if Gov. Romney had been president, could he have used the same slogan — in reverse” — Vice President Joe Biden, April 26, 2012

But what happens when the 3 am call brings bad news? Well, that’s different.

Leon Panetta made very clear that Barack Obama wanted nothing to do with Benghazi

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Thursday revealed he personally broke the news to President Obama that the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, was under attack last year — but he and the president didn’t speak the rest of the night as the assault on the compound unfolded.

Mr. Panetta said he and Mr. Obama, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, discussed the attack for 15 minutes in the Oval Office the afternoon of Sept. 11, and also covered an anti-American protest that had broken out that day at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

Testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Panetta said the president told them to “do whatever you need to do to be able to protect our people there,” though when it came to specifics the president “left it up to us.”

Republicans said they were dismayed that the Defense Department’s top officials and Mr. Obama didn’t speak again over the next six hours, during which two attacks claimed the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

Did Obama ask about the possibility of providing back-up or support or relief to those in Benghazi?

Nope

“Did he ask you how long it would take to deploy assets, including armed aviation, to the area?” asked Sen. Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire Republican.

“No,” answered Mr. Panetta.

“He didn’t ask you what ability you had in the area and what we could do?” Ms. Ayotte asked.

“No,” Mr. Panetta responded again. “I mean, he relied on both myself … and Gen. Dempsey’s capabilities. He knows generally what we have deployed to the region; we’ve presented that to him in other briefings.”

This was an attack on American soil. So who did Obama call that night? No one.

President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday.

“During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released.

At least two Americans might have been saved had Obama done something

Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster.

The White House has said Mr. Obama was kept up to date on the attack by his staff, though after being alerted to the attack in a pre-scheduled afternoon meeting he never spoke again with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin E. Dempsey or then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Couldn’t be bothered.

Sen. John McCain said the White House’s reticence in releasing information contrasts poorly with the flood of details the White House put out about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, which has spawned two movies.

“We still don’t know what the president of the United States was doing the night of the attack and who he was talking to. We know who he wasn’t talking to,” Mr. McCain said.

Actually, we do know. Obama went to sleep. He had a fundraiser in Vegas the next day.

Worse, the White House flat out lied about the attack being related to a protest

Mr. Panetta told Congress last week that he knew immediately the attacks were a terrorist assault, though the White House downplayed that notion in the first five days after the attack.

The Obama adminstration even went to the UN to blame a video for the attack when it was known that was not the case

The Obama administration this morning sent out Ambassador Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, to flack for the administration’s utterly feckless Middle Eastern foreign policy. Her task was difficult: she somehow had to spin the administration’s cowardly foreign policy, resulting in a maelstrom of violent Islamist action around the world, as a result of something not Obama-related.

Then Obama himself made a speech to the UN in which he blamed a video

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfiUQASpVdc[/youtube]

It was a lie. A monumental lie.

We know now what Barack Obama would do in the face of a real crisis, whether it be North Korea or Iran.

He would go to sleep.

He would go out and campaign.

He would blame a video.

He would lie.

Mostly, it would be someone else’s problem.

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