George Bush was relentlessly mocked for waiting seven minutes (actually waiting for his security detail to ready the exit and for his vehicle to be readied) before leaving the school he was visiting. He calmly finished reading My Pet Goat for the kids before going to his now-ready helicopter.
On the other hand, after Obama was told (most likely for the fifteenth time) that the CIA was really, really, really quite confident that Osama bin Ladin was at that compound in Abbottabad, he decided he needed to sleep on it.
Sixteen hours later (hours during which Osama might have fled– bear in mind, his courier’s name had just been outed by WikiLeaks), he made up his mind.
How does the media report this? Well, relying upon those in Obama’s inner circle (that is to say, his political flunkies and spinners), we’re told this:
“But the next morning after 16 hours, Obama summoned four top aides to the White House Diplomatic Room. Before they could speak, the president put his fist on the table and declared ‘It’s a go’.”
Why does it matter that he did this “before they could speak”? They had spoken already yesterday when they strongly, strongly urged the president to give the order, and he had decided to sleep on it.
They were only waiting on him, after all.
So, after 16 hours of vacillation, during which the operation might have been rendered a failure by intervening invents, he fist-bumps a piece of furniture and finally makes up his mind.
This is something to brag about? This is, in Howard Fineman’s words, “almost Biblical”?
Lets give Barry a break on this. This was important this his political future. He needed to make sure that they had things well planned, not only for the military action, but to make sure how it was handled after the even by his administration so they could look professional delivering accurate and timely information so there would be no controversy. This is ultimately what he would be judged on, not the military action which only fools would believe he had anythng to do with. No mistakes like saying Osama was in a firefight and hiding behind his wife when that was not true could be tolerated. No mistakes if word leaked out that the dreaded torture had actually been what gave them the intel leads. No mistakes on the fact that the orders were to kill osama on sight unless he gave the top secret code word and dance meaning he could be taken prisoner…you know hop on on foot in a circle three times while chanting Jesus is my Lord..clearly showing massive resistance when he just looked at the weapons expecting to be taken into custody. No mistakes about releasing the intel that computers and other valuable info was taken in the raid that could be most valuable if kept secret…. don’t want any fools bragging about the treasure trove of intel we had from this Obama led raid. No mistakes about taking 40 minutes to give muslim rights to the scumbag who everyone knows cannot be part of that relgion of peace. No mistakes like saying reason for the raid with troops was to bring back definitive proof for the world on the death of bin laden and then burying the body at sea and not releasing any pictures…how does that work as proof of what we did… No mistakes about Biden outing the troops used as a Navy Seal team..got to keep Joe’s duct tape in place. No mistakes about releasing a photo of all the Obama team watching the raid live only to have Panetta come out and say there was no video for the 25 minutes they were in the house.. etc. etc.
So give the man a break on those 16 hours to make sure nothing went wrong in the things he was responsible for in this action. You don’t want our President to look like a fool do you…
Oh yeah…too late. And they wonder how the birther story got legs???
@Greta: well done! The more one looks at the details of this operation from the administration’s end, the more one comes away thinking that the President and his spin-meisters couldn’t organize a goat-roping.