Everything the president does is political. He can’t have
dinner, go to church, go for a run, or anything else without thinking of how it
affects his political career or his ability of passing and enforcing legislation
that he believes to be the right direction for the country. Bush didn’t just go
to his ranch in Texas and chainsaw some wood without having a meeting about how
the media will cover that event and President Obama also understands that
everything he does will be spun in the media for political gain or for political
loss.
Anyway, I don’t mind that. It’s ok for politicians put on a
show for the public. I like a guy that can chainsaw some wood or picks brackets
for March Madness and those things are fine for a president to do but they don’t
matter that much and I wish the media didn’t over emphasize these things. I wish the media could focus more on the
policies and accomplishments that a president has made. When a president does
do some political theatrics to highlight a policy or accomplishment I wish the
media would see that as a legit way to highlight what they have done and the
direction they want the country to go. Those things are important because based
on what we see these guys do we will decide to vote for them or not.
A few days ago President Obama went to Afghanistan to sign
an agreement with the Afghan government and give a speech to the troops still serving
there. This just happened to be on the same day as the anniversary of the death
of Osama Bin Laden. Well, we all know that’s not true. Of course, President Obama
went to Afghanistan on that exact day to remind us of his administrations
accomplishments of one year ago. But is that a wrong thing to do? Should he
have gone on a different day or not have gone at all? I would say that
reminding the American people that it was on his watch and it was his decision
that ended up killing Osama Bin Laden is not a deceptive political tactic. It
just reminds us of President Obama’s record. And I feel it is important for us
to be reminded of his foreign policy record because I feel the democrats have
been painted unjustly as week on foreign policy.
Over the past year President Obama and the Democrats have shown
a lot of restraint in shamelessly promoting their own foreign policy accomplishments
but there does come a time when the American people should be reminded about
what the record is.
Lately there has been a lot of criticisms for the following
ad about Obama’s decision on killing Osama Bin Laden and the contrast to what
Romney might have does if he was in office.
This ad seems to be fair in that it takes Romney’s actual
words and uses them in context to ask the question “What would Romney have
done.” Romney seems to have made clear
that the war on terrorism should not include spending excessive resources going
after one man. And it seems clear to me that if the operation would have failed
Romney would now be attacking Obama for wasting resources and lives going after
one man.
Romney’s response to the ad is that he would have made the
same order that President Obama did and that “even Jimmy Carter would have
given that order” (meaning killing Osama)
This does not seems to be in line with Romney’s previous statements
and it seems to be fair to contrast what President Obama said he would do and
then actually did do with what Romney said he would actually have done and then
what he now says he would have done. Of course, in any situation there are nuances
and room for explanations but my point is that the actions of President Obama
with the handling of the killing of Osama Bin Laden and his actions one year
later in reminding us what was done and what might have be done under a Romney
administration were totally fair.
It could be argued that President Obama has not handled all
aspects of his administration and/or campaign fairly but in this circumstance I
think it should be recognized that he has.
A fair possible criticism of President Obama is that the killing
of Osama Bin Laden was excessive and unnecessary and that the risks taken were
not worth the potential disaster that could have happened. I’m not inclined to
agree with this argument but at least it would be a respectable and consistent
argument coming from the right. The argument could be that the potential loss
of American lives going after one man who at that point was not functionally
the leader of Al-Queda as well as the international law that was broken going
into sovereign country that we are not at war with has a much bigger down side
then an upside. Weather this mission was
a success or a failure the risks taken were not worth the potential disaster.
I don’t agree with those statements but it would be a
compelling argument to me. I would respect someone making that argument even
though I would disagree with them. Possibly Ron Paul is making that argument
but other than him I have only heard from conservative media that President
Obama is using the death of Bin Laden for political gain and that inferring
that Romney would not have made the same call is somehow unfair.
President Obama, when asked to respond to excessive celebration
in regard to the anniversary of the death of Bin Laden and also the inference
that Romney might not have made the same decision that he did, gave an appropriate
response that you can hear for yourself below.
