Oh No He Didn't

Republicans are all a-pantybunched over the fact that President Obama has "politicized" the killing of bin Laden. So, matter of fact, are some liberals. Being a moderate, I'm somewhere between agreeing with them and thinking it's "fair game," as President Cheney so famously said about Valerie Plame.

As with everything else he does, with the possible exception of breathing, Rs jumped on Obama's claim, before he became president, that if he had the information, he'd cross a border to get the guy. Rominee was among those snorting at the very idea; now, of course, he's saying he'd have done the same thing. (Given his recent taking credit for the auto-bailout he decried for years, it's surprising he's not claiming to have been on Seal Team Six.) But that's not really the point. Here's the point:

Having come up snake eyes, beginning with Tora Bora and continuing for the rest of his presidency, George Bush famously announced he was 1) not that interested in finding bin Laden, and 2) disbanding the special unit tasked with doing it. Moves that, had Barack Hussein Obama made them, the entire force of the right-wing scream machine and their highly mobilized tinfoil hat brigade would have seen as tantamount not just to surrender but to announcing his membership in al Queda. Can anyone doubt it?

Yet, against the odds and risking major embarrassment, shortly after taking office -- and very publicly -- President Obama announced that he'd directed the CIA to redouble its efforts and to make finding OBL a top priority. He went so far as to state, unequivocally, that he would find him. So, yeah: whereas maybe Rominee would have given the go-ahead despite the uncertainties and risk of sending in the team (and his previous statements to the contrary), it's pretty unlikely he'd have had the intelligence (choose your meaning) in the first place. Because it's highly doubtful, given his tendency to take his finger out of his ass and put it into the wind, he'd have made the public commitment Obama did way back when.

So I don't think it's wrong for our president to take credit for the outcome: when he didn't have to, he made the decision to focus again on finding bin Laden, and he succeeded. (And, no, it wasn't Bush's illegal torture regime that led to it.) Then, he made a pretty tough call to drop the hammer.

I'll agree, though, that the ad which roused the ire was heavy-handed. He could have highlighted both the decision to re-engage in looking, and the one to okay the raid, without implying (correctly, probably) that Mittens Rominee wouldn't have made the call. And, as usual, without the slightest sense of irony, Rominee shows his disgust with Obama's politicization of the event, by politicizing it!!

[Update: having written the above a few days ago, and having time to read a couple of opinion pieces like this and this, I'm starting to think what the hell. After all, if Bush had gotten him, he'd still be walking around with his hand in his pants. Right? Bottom line: it's another in an uncountable list of examples of Rs criticizing Ds for doing exactly what they've been doing.]

[Updated update: Naturally, The Daily Show says it best.]