Former US ambassador to Pakistan: Barack Obama showed 'as much courage as our Navy SE

cnredd · #1 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 06:32 PM

Obama courage = SEALs courage?...

Obama deserves credit for killing Bin Laden...

What Obama does NOT deserve is the coodinated "Obama is God" accolades bestowned as per the monthly handbook...

Former US ambassador to Pakistan: Barack Obama showed 'as much courage as our Navy SEALs'

Quote:

There’s been a fair amount of – how shall I put it? – sucking up to President Barack Obama over the past week for his decision to send in the US Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden. Certainly, it was a bold gamble that paid off richly and if it hadn’t it could have crippled his presidency.

But rather than let Obama’s actions speak for themselves, his aides and allies have gone into overdrive and “gutsy” has become the word of the week. As in:

Quote:

When President Obama was faced with the opportunity to act upon this, the president had to evaluate the strength of that information and then made what I believe was one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory.

(John Brennan in the White House briefing room)

Quote:

This was a gutsy decision by the president. A lot of things could have gone wrong.

(Senator John Kerry on MSNBC)

Quote:

It was a very gutsy decision made by the president. I mean, he could have sent some Hellfire missiles in there and destroyed everybody and everything.

(Senator Dianne Feinstein on MSNBC)

Quote:

All of those risks were debated. All of them were thoroughly explored. And in the end, I think that’s why the president made a very gutsy decision by deciding that for all of those risks, we had to do this.

(Leon Panetta on PBS)

Quote:

You know, the president had an opportunity, on a very granular basis, to work with those guys every day, particularly the leaders of the bin Laden team, two very impressive guys. And the president came away very impressed. And it was their information that allowed him to make this gutsy call.

(Denis McDonagh on CNN)

Some have detected a touch of sycophancy and message coordination in all this, suspicions that might be increased by the fact that the newly-acquired domain name gutsycall.com will direct you to Barack Obama’s campaign website.

But the top prize for the most sycophancy towards Obama this week surely has to be awarded to Wendy Chamberlain, Middle East Institute president and former US ambassador to Pakistan, who had this to say on CNN:

Quote:

But he made that decision to go without telling Pakistan and that took some real courage, as much courage as our Navy SEALs did in pulling off a near flawless operation.

Hmm. Think about that. Deciding not to tell the Pakistanis makes Obama as brave as one of the SEALs on the Geronimo mission? As brave as a man who rappels down a rope from a Black Hawk into a compound deep in Pakistan at the dead of night knowing that it is the hideout of a mass murderer who happens to be the world’s most wanted terrorist?

What's funny from the Left is they say the Right gives Obama NO credit, and then run off to him so much credit they make fools of themselves to rational people...

The Independants see this...and the charade...and the Left will wonder what happened...

Khandahar · #2 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 06:42 PM

So what bothers you? Similar terminology or the fact that someone is giving Obama his props?

alan · #3 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 08:17 PM

It's almost as if the left has one play book and they are all reading it.

*The word of the day is 'gutsy' because we can't use 'gravitas' again.*

It's hilarious how they fall over over themselves trying to kiss his ass for a job well done.

Calypso Jones · #4 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 08:32 PM

this is getting ridiculous. He's gutsy for avoiding letting the pakis know what they were up.

Spencer Collins · #5 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 09:25 PM

I don't believe for a minute that Obama believes he has as much courage as our Navy SEAL teams. Some on the left may believe he does and they are wrong.I do believe he took a political risk green lighting a mission and not using drones to get the job done. Had the mission failed, people would place the blame on him and not on the SEAL team. Once a president approves a mission he owns it no matter the outcome.

alan · #6 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spencer Collins

I don't believe for a minute that Obama believes he has as much courage as our Navy SEAL teams. Some on the left may believe he does and they are wrong.I do believe he took a political risk green lighting a mission and not using drones to get the job done. Had the mission failed, people would place the blame on him and not on the SEAL team. Once a president approves a mission he owns it no matter the outcome.

Yep.
Mr Carter owned the failure of the Iran hostage mission.
Mr Obama owns the success of bin Laden's demise.

Khandahar · #7 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alan

It's almost as if the left has one play book and they are all reading it.

*The word of the day is 'gutsy' because we can't use 'gravitas' again.*

It's hilarious how they fall over over themselves trying to kiss his ass for a job well done.

Seriously? The bush admin received scripts from Frank Luntz on the word of the day! Repugs in congress were carboned in the email.

alan · #8 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Khandahar

Seriously? The bush admin received scripts from Frank Luntz on the word of the day! Repugs in congress were carboned in the email.

Silly me, I thought this thread wasn't about Mr Bush.

Do you think two wrongs make a right?
Do you think the argument that since somebody else did something that makes it ok for the next person to do it?
Is your whole purpose in life to justify bad behavior by citing bad behavior?

Khandahar · #9 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 10:16 PM

These astroturf libertarians are the real threat to internet democracy | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Quote:

Reading comment threads on the Guardian's sites and elsewhere on the web, two patterns jump out at me. The first is that discussions of issues in which there's little money at stake tend to be a lot more civilised than debates about issues where companies stand to lose or gain billions: such as climate change, public health and corporate tax avoidance. These are often characterised by amazing levels of abuse and disruption.

Articles about the environment are hit harder by such tactics than any others. I love debate, and I often wade into the threads beneath my columns. But it's a depressing experience, as instead of contesting the issues I raise, many of those who disagree bombard me with infantile abuse, or just keep repeating a fiction, however often you discredit it. This ensures that an intelligent discussion is almost impossible – which appears to be the point.

Coyote · #10 (**permalink**) 05-08-2011, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cnredd

Obama courage = SEALs courage?...

Obama deserves credit for killing Bin Laden...

What Obama does NOT deserve is the coodinated "Obama is God" accolades bestowned as per the monthly handbook...

Former US ambassador to Pakistan: Barack Obama showed 'as much courage as our Navy SEALs'

What's funny from the Left is they say the Right gives Obama NO credit, and then run off to him so much credit they make fools of themselves to rational people...

The Independants see this...and the charade...and the Left will wonder what happened...

It was gutsy in the sense that it could all have gone terribly wrong.

Ala Carter's Iran hostage crisis
Ala Somalia and Mogadeshu

You and I both know what the political repercussions would have been had anything gone wrong or even had one of ours been killed.

The politically "safe" thing to do would been a drone attack bombing the compound. But we would have had no intelligence that way.

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