Thread: Before he spiked the ball, Obama made sure his ass was covered...

Originally Posted by MattInFla

According to Time magazine, operational control for the Bin Laden mission was handled by Admiral McRaven, with the requisite Washington CYA:



You can bet your last penny that had anything gone wrong, the President would have absolved himself of any and all blame and responsibility.

Presented as yet more evidence that our current President is, contrary to what his fanatical supporters here would have us believe, just a typical politician.

Matt

Obama's voting record as a Senator was a pretty good indication that he was risk-averse---even for a politician. So the CYA thing is consistent with that.

Originally Posted by MattInFla

According to Time magazine, operational control for the Bin Laden mission was handled by Admiral McRaven, with the requisite Washington CYA:



You can bet your last penny that had anything gone wrong, the President would have absolved himself of any and all blame and responsibility.

Presented as yet more evidence that our current President is, contrary to what his fanatical supporters here would have us believe, just a typical politician.

Matt

Of course he's a typical politician, they all are. However he did the right thing in turning over operational control to the Admiral instead of trying to micromanage it. That's the way these things are supposed to work.

As for absolving himself, it's possible but we'll never know for sure as the op was successful.

Originally Posted by wooyarn

Of course he's a typical politician, they all are. However he did the right thing in turning over operational control to the Admiral instead of trying to micromanage it. That's the way these things are supposed to work.

As for absolving himself, it's possible but we'll never know for sure as the op was successful.

I absolutely guarantee you that had the mission gone to crap, we'd have heard quite a bit here about how the "pampered losers" fucked up the most perfectest President evah's perfect plan.

I fail to see a problem with a politician who has zero experience of combat turning over control of one of the most important raids in history to someone in the military.

Originally Posted by PeterUK75

I fail to see a problem with a politician who has zero experience of combat turning over control of one of the most important raids in history to someone in the military.

I agree on that point. But then the same politician uses the raid as a political tool, and speaks of it in terms of his personal accomplishment. "I did... I decided... "

You can bet your last Pound Sterling that had the raid gone wrong, President Obama would have been saying "They did... They decided... They gave me bad information... "

Originally Posted by MattInFla

I absolutely guarantee you that had the mission gone to crap, we'd have heard quite a bit here about how the "pampered losers" fucked up the most perfectest President evah's perfect plan.

What "pampered losers" are you referring too?

Would you have preferred Obama micromanaging the op, or turn it over to the experts as he did.
The only people i see using things like, " most perfectest President evah's,annointed one,socialist" and all the other cute little names are generally the group of Left and Right wingbats we have on this forum.

Originally Posted by wooyarn

What "pampered losers" are you referring too?

That's how one of our noted leftists refers to our armed forces. Each and every past and present soldier, sailor, airman or marine is a "pampered loser" (unless it is momentarily politically expedient to feign concern for them).

Originally Posted by wooyarn

Would you have preferred Obama micromanaging the op, or turn it over to the experts as he did.
The only people i see using things like, " most perfectest President evah's,annointed one,socialist" and all the other cute little names are generally the group of Left and Right wingbats we have on this forum.

I actually gave Obama a great deal of credit for ordering the assault, right up until he recently decided he needed to "spike the football" for political purposes.

And yes, the "most perfectest President evah" was a jibe at some of his followers here who never admit that he does anything wrong (or pair the most feeble condemnation of his error with excuses as to why it wasn't really his fault). Honestly, the fawning admiration for President Obama among some of our posters here is nearly cult-like and it's pretty scary.

Originally Posted by MattInFla

That's how one of our noted leftists refers to our armed forces. Each and every past and present soldier, sailor, airman or marine is a "pampered loser" (unless it is momentarily politically expedient to feign concern for them).



I actually gave Obama a great deal of credit for ordering the assault, right up until he recently decided he needed to "spike the football" for political purposes.

And yes, the "most perfectest President evah" was a jibe at some of his followers here who never admit that he does anything wrong (or pair the most feeble condemnation of his error with excuses as to why it wasn't really his fault). Honestly, the fawning admiration for President Obama among some of our posters here is nearly cult-like and it's pretty scary.

So why get in the gutter with them. Every president points out what went right and their opponents will point what went wrong. I don't see a real problem with that as long as both sides are honest about it.

Originally Posted by MattInFla

I agree on that point. But then the same politician uses the raid as a political tool, and speaks of it in terms of his personal accomplishment. "I did... I decided... "

You can bet your last Pound Sterling that had the raid gone wrong, President Obama would have been saying "They did... They decided... They gave me bad information... "

Matt, your dead on. In support of your claim, has Obama took blame for anything? He has an excuse for anything and everything, from bad weather all the way to Bush.

Originally Posted by wooyarn

So why get in the gutter with them. Every president points out what went right and their opponents will point what went wrong. I don't see a real problem with that as long as both sides are honest about it.

I would say Matt is pointing out that it is Obama that is in the gutter. Taking this event and "spiking the ball".

I'm not surprised. Obama is notorious for his "drive-by politicking", i.e. be informed of a situation, give his thought and get the hell outta dodge before he can be linked to any and all consequences derived from his decision.

Agreed that Obama is no more or less like any other ass-covering finger-pointing politican out there. But, not so sure Obama made a mistake here (political or otherwise) in how he handled decision making on taking Bin Laden out. PeterUK75 has a point here on making a presidential decision, then turning over specifics to the military leadership to carry out such an important raid in another country without their in advance support. So many things could have gone wrong and if they did, I suspect Obama would not be able to get himself off the hook so easily. But things did go well, and a political "spike the ball" was all but to be expected by Obama.

Originally Posted by MattInFla

According to Time magazine, operational control for the Bin Laden mission was handled by Admiral McRaven, with the requisite Washington CYA:



You can bet your last penny that had anything gone wrong, the President would have absolved himself of any and all blame and responsibility.

Presented as yet more evidence that our current President is, contrary to what his fanatical supporters here would have us believe, just a typical politician.

Matt

Obama's advisers 60/40 were AGAINST taking this risk. Obama said he would sleep on it, and came back with HIS decision to go ahead. Yet so many of us do not want to give the man credit, or try to come up with this idea that he was covering his ass. That is ludicrous, and a reaonable person can see this easily, IMO.

Obama stood to lose a helluva lot, just like Carter, if he there was a blunder, and he had the guts the resolve to take that chance.

Since it was HIS decision, I don't see how he could have weaseled out of it, given the facts. But keep trying, you guys who hate him. You throw enough shit, something is bound to stick sooner or later, and then you can sit back and say, " I told ya so".

We are no longer americans. We are broken down into those who hate Obama and those who will give him the benefit of the doubt. It is quite dysfunctional IMO and shows what we as a people have sunk to. That is my opinion sir.