That new Obama campaign video
So, here’s that video that you’ve all been reading about this weekend in which Bill Clinton hints that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have made the decision to pull the trigger on Osama bin Laden last year;
I think it’s rather funny that Bill Clinton, who didn’t take advantage of his own military intelligence in the pre-2001 days to kill bin Laden, probably removing the 9-11 attack from our history, but now he’s praising Obama for doing what Clinton didn’t have the courage to do. And oh, yeah, as long as we’re looking at the leadership in the White House, don’t forget that Joe “Bite Me” Biden advised the President to not take advantage of the opportunity;
Vice President Joe Biden jumped on the Obama leadership bandwagon Friday when he revealed that he cautioned the president against signing off on the raid on bin Laden’s hideaway. Despite his reservations, Biden said the president made the decision all alone.
So, we know how the president’s closest adviser and potential successor would have handled the decision.
I think it’s fairly disingenuous of the Obama campaign to use comments that Romney made five years ago against him as prof that he wouldn’t have made the decision. Especially when the comments were clearly made about the entire war and not that one aspect.
While I commend the president for ultimately making the right decision, calling it “audacious” and making it the centerpiece of the entire 2012 campaign is a bit of hyperbole. Everyone who wouldn’t have made the same call, raise your hand. Yeah, that’s what I thought. From the video;
Clinton added, “The downside would have been horrible for him, but he reasoned I cannot in good conscience do nothing. He took the harder and the more honorable path and the one that produced in my opinion the best result.”
No, Obama made the same decision that most Americans would have made if they had an opportunity to make, except that we would have made the decision based on the realities of the world, and Obama made the politically expeditious decision. As we have all witnessed, if the mission had somehow failed, someone besides Obama would have been heaped with blame, as the blog formerly known as Blackfive mentions.
But in preparation for their celebratory spike, the Stars & Stripes reports that the Obama Administration is taking NBC News on a victory lap through the “situation room” at the White House.
I think it’s pretty funny that the Obama crowd is making a big deal about this whole thing when, if they had been in office on 9-11, we wouldn’t have gone after anyone who had attacked us. We’d probably be shoveling protection money to bin Laden instead of killing him.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
Intriguing post Jonn. On one hand you’re spot on in your critique of the Obama campaign making this a centerpiece and correctly stating “Obama made the same decision that most Americans would have made if they had an opportunity to make…”
On the other hand, you engage in the same sort of hyperbole that you excoriate them for by stating “if they had been in office on 9-11, we wouldn’t have gone after anyone who had attacked us. We’d probably be shoveling protection money to bin Laden instead of killing him.”
Yeah, well, we’ve got Clinton, who we know for a fact wouldn’t kill bin Laden in pre-9-11 days and “Bite Me” ten years into the war advising Obama against killing bin Laden. I think that’s pretty indicative of what the Democrats would have done in the days following 9-11. And we also have the example of how the Clinton Administration reacted to to the 1993 attack on the WTC – they increased aid to the Taliban. I don’t think I engaged in hyperbole at all, looking at the givens.
You could be right, but it’s still an unknown. Most of us thought that the Bush Administration would have stopped at nothing to eradicate al Qaeda. Some of us still feel a bit let down on that front.
You mean this was a political ad? Seriously?? Thought it was a comedy routine.
Oh it’ll get worse, there’s tards out there that think Nobama is a member of SEAL team 6 and dropped the hammer on him single handedly.
CI: The Clinton administration reportedly had 3 different chances to either (a) get custody of, or (b) take out bin Laden, but passed on all 3. We also know how they reacted to the first WTC, the USS Cole, and the US embassy bombings. And as I recall, Gore was in the middle of all of those discussions.
So yeah: I think we have a damn good idea of what a Gore administration would have done to prevent 9/11 (nothing) and how they’d have reacted to same (limply). They did pretty much exactly that prior to 9/11 when al Qaeda declared war on and attacked the US.
Jonn’s IMO really damn close if not spot on in his assessment here.
Above was me. Away from home this AM, and the proxy setup here apparently dumps ID info when I navigate page-to-page.
@Hondo – Yes, you are correct, sort of. The government of Sudan had reportedly reached out to the Clinton Administration with the offer of arresting bin Laden with the caveat of placing him in Saudi custody, which IIRC, they refused.
As far as the responses to other terror attacks, we must remember that Clinton didn’t have the cover of a blanket authorization such as the AUMF….and what passes for a definition of ‘limply’ is largely drawn along partisan lines. I’m not a defender of the Clinton Administration, but rhetoric and reality often don’t share the same real estate.
So basically your falling back on the old Republican standby of lying your asses off when it comes to YOUR failures on National Security. Here’s what FactCheck.org has to say about the “silver platter” myth: http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/clinton-passed-on-killing-bin-laden/ The Fact of the matter is that when there was an indictment handed down against OSama Bin Laden two years AFTER the alleged offer from the terrorist sponsoring Sudanese Government (imagine the reaction if Democrats believed terrorists over George W. Bush?) Bill Clinton DID order missile strikes against the known whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden. And what did the Country-first conservatives do at the time? They accused him of wagging the dog. And said that he was “obsessed” with Osama Bin Laden. Then George W. Bush was selected for office and Bill Clinton handed over a detailed plan to get Osama Bin Laden. But the dumb-ass in chief ignored it because he had a philosophy of doing the opposite of whatever Clinton did. So he was free to act unchallenged despite intelligence warning and THAT is what led to 911. Then for a few short months he wanted Osama Bin Laden “dead or alive” and then when he couldn’t find him, 6 months later he claimed to be “truly not concerned” with Bin Laden and that he “didn’t spend that much time on him”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o And he proved his lack of concern by letting Bin Laden go at Tora Bora. He had more important things to do like trump up evidence for an unnecessary war. And of course 4 years later George W. Bush shut down the Bin Laden task force and it remained inactive until President Obama took office. Then we had 6 years of failed Iraqi policy in which Bin Laden was in a home in Pakistan- not in some cave. Apparently he was still very active in Al Queda according to the intelligence gathered in the raid so we know that both Bush AND Romney were wrong in terms of Bin Laden not being very important. So no, it’s not “out of context”. He stated that Bin Laden is not important… Read more »
I have two thoughts on this, one kind of in response to CI’s comments and one that may have people telling me I need to loosen up my tinfoil hat because it’s restricting blood circulation to my brain. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was director of the CIA when Bin Laden was killed, admitted that information gained from waterboarding captured terrorists was used to track him down. One of Obama’s first acts as president was to ban waterboarding of captured terrorists. It’s possible that had Obama been president in 2001 the leftists would have been fine with waterboarding, but we have no way of knowing that. All we really know is that if Obama had been president in 2001 and had behaved the same way he did as president in 2009, according to one of his own senior political appointees we wouldn’t have had the information necessary to find Bin Laden. Now here’s the tinfoil hat part… Imagine you have a really important job, like you’re a regional sales manager or something. And imagine that you have a really important appointment, like a meeting where you’re going to close a big sale and make your company a whole bunch of money. Would you be out on the golf course until so close to the beginning of the meeting that you had to literally go running into your office in your golf shoes? Then show up at the meeting where everybody else looks like they’re there to work, still looking like you just walked off the golf course? Yeah, me too. Now imagine that you’re the president of the United States and after sleeping on it to decide if it’s something you want to do you’d given the order to send in a team to capture or kill the most wanted terrorist in the world… Does anybody know of any really convincing evidence that Obama even knew our guys were going in after Bin Laden? Because from appearances, I’d say it looked a lot more like somebody called him on the golf course and surprised him with the news that SEAL… Read more »
Insipid – I stopped reading after you called out those on the right for lying and myths, then proceed to use the line that Bush was ‘selected’.
He was selected, not a myth a fact.
@Andy – Panetta’s statement runs counter to statements by others, including the recent Senate IC probe. In essence, most of this argument boils down to who one is more likely to believe.
Regarding Obama sitting in the corner during the raid……if this constitutes underpinning an argument against Obama, what credibility does the argument have in the first place. He could have been sitting where the USAF LNO was and people would have still made cracks about it. These diversions are the tabloid side of political discourse.
Why bother reading anything insipid posts? Not worth anyone’s time.
CI – You’re much more patient than I am. I stopped reading when he cited a “fact check” site run by a liberal advocacy group.
@Andy – I’m not sure I would call only getting to the 2nd full paragraph as patient.
Factcheck.org isn’t necessarily wrong, anymore than rightwing advocacy sites are necessarily right. Both types of venues can be useful to get to primary sources and documents, and should be taken with the same skepticism as media sites.
Andy, that’s his favorite site to verify his claims. Anyone who cites FactCheck isn’t worth the effort to read the bullshit it posts.
Actually Andy N. Panetta said no such thing. He stated that intelligence that led to Osama’s death was derived from multiple sources and that it is an “open question” as to whether or not enhanced interrogation techniques worked. In other words he’s not giving away intelligence methods. It’s just false to say the interview was a ringing endorsement of torture. Here’s the interview:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/03/panetta_open_question_if_waterboarding_helped_find_bin_laden.html
CI – No disagreement here… “Factcheck.org isn’t necessarily wrong, anymore than rightwing advocacy sites are necessarily right.”
As for this… “Regarding Obama sitting in the corner during the raid…” The sitting in the corner wasn’t really the point. The point was, this was one of, if not THE, most momentous decisions of his life. I’d have to say that most people under the same circumstances wouldn’t have made the call and then told our staff that if they needed me for anything they knew where to find me on a Sunday morning.
Andy N. please spare me the “liberal media” bullshit. Factcheck and politifact have gone way too far in trying to appear “balanced.” They feel obligated to go tit for tat in lies even though one party- the Republicans is the one engaging in far more whoppers.
@Andy – I understand where you’re coming from now, and can’t really disagree. I supposed I was reacting more to the onslaught of empty commenting on where he sat, the look on Hilary’s face, and other nonsensical argumentative props.
Just because you don’t want to read the truth, CI does not make it less truthfull. Bush V. Gore happened and the SC selected. Even if you were to argue that Bush would of won anyway (a statement i disagree with completely- but fine) he was STILL selected. If a Plane is hijacked and it lands where it was eventually going to land, it is STILL a hijacked plane. We don’t let the hijackers go free. The SC are just as guilty as the hijackers in this case. There intention was to rig the election for their guy, they did that. The President WAS selected, not elected, deal with it.
Its always nice when insipid drops in to let loose with one of his rants, hilarity usually follows.
If anything, his posts are quite useful in showing he is incapable of independent thought since most of them are copied and pasted; but still hardly worth reading.
Whatever. You know it’s all Bush’s fault.
PS Have we had a president yet who wasn’t selected?? The option would be what exactly???
Redacted, kindly provide the link where i “coppied and pasted”. Othewise, STFU.
I think I’d rather talk to Michael Yon about helicopter lights than talk to Insipid about anything related to Obama.
So here’s the thing. . . Obama would never have gotten Bin Laden if not for a majority of Bush policies he openly opposed. Once it came down to it, the Raid, which was high risk (to be sure) and reminiscent of Desert 1, there was a lot of room for failure. That this raid did not have fighter escort to ward off the Pakistani F-16’s that chased them back into Afghanistan, or that the compound was not secured so that the now infamous tail rotor can be removed is also a weakness.
Indeed from all the crap they’ve leaked its pretty clear that no one wanted to make the call except Pennetta, or Biden. One of which was clear he absolutely should go, the other was absolutely certain he should not. It shows more than anything the majority of his advisers are spineless.
Even after he had Red Cell confirmation, he STILL took 16 hours to make a decision. At that point the gutsy thing would been not to have gone.
And he probably believes everything he’s told, for example, I’m sure at one point someone told insipid that titties and va jay jay are bad for him. Nothing more need be said.
You guys are cracking me up. It’s completely unfair to blame Bush for everything Bush did, but it’s completely fair to blame Clinton for alleged failures based on the word of terrorists, it’s completely fair to blame carter for the ecomic collapse or Barney Frank or ANYONE But Bush.
I guess you all are the Part of other people’s responsibility.
Again, i’ll stop blaming Bush when you START blaming Bush.
Oh for goodness sakes Bush had NOTHING to do with capturing Osama Bin Laden. In fact the techniques he employed SIX YEARS before we finally got the SOB almost certainly prolonged the hunt.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/12/torture_did_not_lead_us_to_bin_laden
From the article:
“I asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he told me the following: The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. The first mention of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the nickname of the al-Qaeda courier who ultimately led us to bin Laden — as well as a description of him as an important member of al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country, who we believe was not tortured. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts or an accurate description of his role in al-Qaeda.
In fact, the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” on Khalid Sheik Mohammed produced false and misleading information. He specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married and ceased his role as an al-Qaeda facilitator — none of which was true. According to the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee — information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti’s real role in al-Qaeda and his true relationship to bin Laden — was obtained through standard, noncoercive means.”
Bush deserves no credit and gets no credit. He was failure at “smok[ing] him out” and everything else.
Yeah absolutely nothing, except deploying us to FUCKING AFGHANISTAN!!! Christ some people are fucking braindead.
insipid, You love Progressives and Democrats. You hate Bush. You believe what Progressives and Democrats say. You disbelieve whatever Bush and conservatives say. By your words, and by the deeds of writing them and posting them here, you accept these as true statements. The Clinton Administration’s stated policy, in word and deed, was to treat terrorism as a law enforcement matter. When Obama was given office, he said terrorism would be treated as a law enforcement matter. A known demonstration of this is having one of the bombers of our embassies, committed during the Clinton Administration, tried in NYC. By your words, and by your deeds of posting them here, you therefore accept these truths about policy, which is the enactment of philosophy, to findable on the net, from a variety of sources, and inherently true. It is no stretch of the imagination, given the catalogue of words and deeds done by Progressives and Democrats, to apply their stated, demonstrated philosophy toward 9-11 and its aftermath. In fact, it is generally agreed we are still in the aftermath of 9-11. This isn’t a matter of conjecture, nor is it “Fake but accurate” as Progressives love to say. As an aside: ‘fake-but-accurate’ was the guiding principle for the Left for many decades – you lack the moral and intellectual curiosity to understand what you believe is true, may not be. Gore supported rendition, that is kidnapping a suspect for elevated levels of interrogation in third party countries. But you, insipid, focus on Bush’s support of a single technique: waterboarding. Gore’s approach has been, and continues to be a vicious use of force under the guise of law enforcement. See also: AGW and what Gore wants done to its critics. Pelosi made several trips to Syria, which is the Costco of Terrorism, to negotiate support for the murderous Assad regime. Assad, like Pelosi and Progressives throughout the US, is a strong supporter of overkilling police tactics to suppress public dissent. It’s part and parcel of the police-as-enforcer Law Enforcement philosophy of Progressives. Murtha, the dimwits from Washington state, Moran the moron, and… Read more »
A little off topic, Obama in early 2009 personally ordered a stop to the military trial of the guys who carried out the 9/11 attacks. You will recall the hamhanded way they then tried to move the trial to New York, before Congress intervened. This shortsightedness of Obama delayed military justice for years. For those interested, the 9/11 trial is starting again in a few days. The military is opening it up to cameras and viewing places for the public at military bases around the country, an unprecedented event. Would be great if one of the TAH writers could cover it for all of us.
This just in, from the “Do as I say, not as I do” department:“But four years ago this April, the Obama campaign criticized Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for using Osama bin Laden in a political ad”. That’s from the ABC news blog. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/flashback-obama-campaign-accused-clinton-of-using-bin-laden-to-score-political-points-in-2008/
Hell, let’s just give them all medals:
“Bolding risking his own political hide and rushing to the video screen to watch others risk their lives on the other side of the world, the ruler of the Western World, Obama, suffered neck strain, and observed the gasps of his political colleagues while overcome with the smell of Biden and Hillary, for nearly an hour, before declaring himself, the only man on Earth bold enough to control the remote. As the mission was initiated, he made jokes to reporters, belying his fears that the mission wouldn’t fall on an historic date. As the enemy sold the classified equipment left behind, he confidently walked to the podium, certain watching that screen would get him re-elected.” Proposed citation for the Adminstrators of the Republic.
http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/ps/2012/04/should-obama-get-a-medal-of-honor-for-watching-the-obl-raid.html
How DARE Obama politicize this! What will that bastard do next? He’ll probably land on an aircraft carrier with a conspicuous codpiece and a “Mission Accomplished” banner! The bastard!
Oh, wait….
Oh, by the way here’s the 911 commission:
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch4.htm
Completely backs up what I and Factcheck said. I guess they’re part of the Librul media too, huh?
@38, Chowder Head, is that you? You can’t see the hypocrisy of Obama criticizing Shrillary for running an ad mentioning Bin Laden, then 3 1/2 years later he does the same thing? Why am I asking, of course you can’t.
No hypocrisy at all. There WOULD be hypocrisy if President (then Senator) Obama had said something like “it’s not worth spending billions to get Obama” and Hillary had taken him to task for that. That’s not what happened in this case. Romney stated that it’s not worth spending a lot of effort to get Bin Laden and President Obama is taking him to task for it. Not comparable, not hypocritical. All it does is reveal what the GOP stands for: Group of pussies.
Insipid, living proof of “”Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so”.
Know, the problem is that “liberals” took your national security binky away and you just don’t know what to do.
You want to have it all ways, you want to be able to relentlesly criticize Democrats if they fail on a National Security operation (the embasy rescue, Black Hawk Down) but also cry fowl if Democrats claim credit for success.
You and you alone claim the right to politicize national security and our now all pouty because President Obama does not want to play by YOUR rules. Well, i’m sorry, we’re better at National Security then you are and we’ve proven it over and ovder again. Deal with it.
I agree with you DaveO we know from words and deeds what Democrats would do and what Republicans would do. Under Democrat Bill Clinton the people responsible for the first WTC attack were arrested and our in jail right now. The people responsible for 911 under GWB went free as GWB went off to attack a country that did not attack us and was not a threat to us. It took a Democrat to kill him.
Obama has killed FAR more terrorists thus far than Bush has. Under Republicans terrorists are “difficult to find” or are “ellusive” or are “not worth spending billions on” under Democrats terrorists are dead. Any questions?
insipid, why are you separating yourself from other americans as if they are the enemy. if people like you were not so concerned with being right then maybe some productive things could be discussed. it did not take a democrat to kill bin laden. it took the skill set of men (the SEALs and 160th SOAR guys who executed the op) who are greater human beings than any political party or affiliation you try to say is the reason for the mission being a success. it doesn’t matter that obama was in office to make the call. he had nothing to do with the success or failure of the mission.
Me and me alone, Insipid? You give me far too much credit.
I just pointed out that Obama said it was not right to use Bin Laden in a political ad, then decided that, yeah, it’s OK to use Bin Laden in a political ad, because Baracka’s the one doing it.
I don’t care which dictionary you’re using, that’s hypocrisy.
I enjoyed watching Saddam being dragged from his hole and watching him swing at the end of a rope. His boys’ bodies was a pretty good sight. Al-zaqawi getting blow up was nice…I am having some nice memories.
#44, you clearly don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Am I the last one in on the joke? I just now realized that insipid is Jonn’s sock puppet that he rolls out to present the reductio ad absurdum of leftist talking points when the comments get slow. I mean, seriously, nobody’s that clueless. The rest of ya’ll have just been playing along and I’m just now catching on, right?
Well played, Mr. Lilyea. Well played.
@45: Yes, it most assuredly DOES matter who is in office. Contrary to the initial post, not “anyone” would make the call. Not only would Bush not of made the call he would never even be put in a position to be ABLE to make the call because he shut down the task force to get the guy and long before that decided that he wasn’t worth the effort:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PGmnz5Ow-o
Mitt Romney in that interview revealed he was perfectly OK with Bush’s policy of ignoring Bin Laden and hoping he will go away. It was Barack Obama who stated that he would reinstitute the task force to get Bin Laden and he was the one who did it.
Speaking of hypocrisy the GOP were the ones who made this all fair game. Before 2002 and 2004 politics stopped at the waters edge. The GOP decided that painting Democrats as weak on National Security was a great way to win elections.
You don’t get to change the rules NOW because your own strategy is biting you in the ass right now. Man up or get out of the way.