Overruled

I've heard separately it from two of my conservative friends. One sent me a link in embarrassment at the stupidity of some that share his end of the spectrum. The other implied he thought it might be true.

I refer to the meme that sucked up electrons on the right-wing blogs, even before bin Laden's body had equilibrated with ambient temperature: Leon Panetta overruled Obama and ordered the Abbotabad operation himself. Overruled! Of course!!

This concept is so stupid on its face that you'd think even those to whom the idea of a black guy in the white house has driven all reason from their heads would, on even a nanosecond's reflection, realize it makes no sense. None.

How would it have worked, exactly? Obama said no, then Leon took some general aside and said yes, whispering? And the general obeyed the CIA, not the CIC? Or might he have passed a note under the table? So in that famous picture in the Situation Room, President Obama is about to get the surprise of his life??!! Because the only way the word "overruled" makes sense is if Obama was in the dark. Otherwise it's, you know, decision-making.

I have no doubt that, leading up to the final decision, there were many points of view strongly expressed. I'd sure as hell hope so; wouldn't you? Unlike his predecessor, Barack Obama seems to want strong opinions and wants people around him who'll express them, especially those opposite from his own. You know, like a real leader would. How nice it would have been had such thought preceded the disastrous decision to invade Iraq and the lack of preparedness that went with it.

Might Panetta's opinion on the use of Seal Team 6 been the one that prevailed? Sure. Might the president even have been persuaded, having begun at a different place? Why the hell not? That's called evaluating, looking at the big picture, weighing pros and cons, considering consequences. (Speaking of which, how do the screamers reconcile their preferred vision with the fact that our president insisted the Seal team had the resources to fight its way out, as opposed to the smaller footprint proposed by DOD?)

The only way to explain this latest stupidity on the part of the believers is by concluding that, to those of RWS™ mentality, the concept of decision-making based on taking into account all points of views, on considering options, thinking it through, being willing to change one's mind based on evidence, is so foreign as to be literally impossible to reckon. And given their obvious rejection of the obvious, their hydrophobic resistance to the ignorance-quenching properties of facts (climate change, evolution, age of the earth, failed Reaganomics, etc ad boredum), that simply must be the explanation.

Sadly, these people are electing people who think (for lack of a more descriptive term) just like they do. Which is why the more I hear this stuff, the more certain I am that we're way beyond the turning point, heading for the end, slowly exsanguinating from self-inflicted wounds. This great country, overtaken and destroyed by idiocy. And, for its first couple of centuries, it had gotten off to such a good start.