Obama hammered for focus on killing of bin Laden
AFP/Getty Images
Reelection arguments don't get much more straightforward than this: I made the decision to go after and kill America's biggest enemy. It worked. My opponent has suggested he wouldn't have done the same. So who do you want making those decisions for four more years?
Indeed, that's the argument that President Obama's campaign team made in a video out Friday that featured former president Bill Clinton. But even as reporters and politicians partied this weekend at the White House Correspondent's Association dinner, the questions were growing over the appropriateness of the argument.
The first volley was a scathing statement from GOP Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, who accused Mr. Obama of "politicizing" the killing in "a Romney adviser Ed Gillespie on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, who called the video a "bridge too far."
"This is one of the reasons President Obama has become one of the most divisive presidents in American history," he said. "He took something that was a unifying event for all Americans - an event that Gov. Romney congratulated him and the military and the intelligence analysts in our government for completing the mission in terms of killing Osama bin Laden - and he's managed to turn it into a divisive partisan political attack."
It's unclear the degree to which either argument will really resonate at a time when Americans say their chief focus is the state of the economy. But Republicans to appear to have found an argument to at least somewhat diminish what should be one of the president's strongest rationales for another term.
And there are clear signs that the message is effective: On "CBS This Morning" Monday, liberal commentator Arianna Huffington sided with Team Romney, calling the decision to release the Clinton video "one of the most despicable things you can do." (It's worth noting here, as Slate's William Saletan does, that Gillespie himself suggested in 2004 that then-Democratic nominee John Kerry wouldn't have gone after Saddam Hussein, but hey, memories are short in Washington.) It's understandable that the Obama campaign wants to trumpet one of Mr. Obama's most significant and unambiguous first term accomplishments -- and they'll be doing so again on Tuesday, the anniversary of bin Laden's death, when an with the president about the decision, set in the situation room, runs on NBC. But by doing so now in such an explicit way, it may have engaged in an overreach that will make it harder to bring the issue up in the coming months, as Americans begin to really start to tune into the race.
UPDATE, 1:25 p.m. Eastern Time: The White House doesn't seemed cowed by the criticism. In a speech Monday, Obama counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan mentioned bin Laden 13 times, including here: "Credit for that success belongs to the courageous forces who carried out that mission, at extraordinary risk to their lives; to the many intelligence professionals who pieced together the clues that led to bin Laden's hideout; and to President Obama, who gave the order to go in."
MORE: And Romney weighs in: "Of course" I would have attacked bin Laden
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Who can forget the war criminal Bushoccio and his premature Mission Accomplished stunt. Talk about making things like that political. And years and years too early.
And how about the ***** Guiliani and the rest of the lousy incompetent band of Republicons talking again and again and again about 911, 911, 911. Using a tragedy THEY allowed for political gain.
Indeed, that's the argument that President Obama's campaign team made"
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AND IT IS A VERY VALID ARGUMENT DURING AN ELECTION!!
However considering the last Republicon President let us get hit again on 911, started two unnecessary wars based on lies and almost got us into the Second Great Republican Depression, I cannot even imagine what happens to us if Democrats do not keep the pResidency and take back the House.
Remember when candidate Obama said he would end the war in Iraq? Promise kept. Remember when he said he'd shift the effort to Afghanistan? Promise kept. Remember when he said he would go after Bin Laden wherever and whenever possible--even if it meant going into Pakistan? Candidate McCain called that "irresponsible"! But President Obama kept that promise as well and has every right to trumpet one of his administration's greatest successes.
But the titans of hypocrisy, to this date give the President no credit for his cool head and steadfast determination. They were the first to crow "Mission Accomplished!" as Iraq slid into lawlessness and terror. They would have been the first to jeer had anything gone tragically wrong with the mission to kill and capture Bin Laden.
Elections too are supposed to be "unifying events." But the Republicans, having pushed this country over the brink with an economy in freefall and two hot privatized for-profit wars, immediately set out after the election to "destroy his Presidency," with the lowest appeals to lies (Kenyan, Muslim), demonizing propaganda (terrorist handshake), and repeatedly damaging the nation's credit by suggesting America would not pay its debts. We've even had shout outs on behalf of slavery and secession from their recent slate of Presidential candidates! Good gravy, even most Southerners today recognize those were two of the greatest disasters ever to befall America. And they want to run on that?? It's like they're rooting for America to fail (as when Romney said GM should have been allowed to collapse for want of bridge financing) and like they are disappointed when America recovers as when GM recently returned to being the world's largest automaker!
The President has every right to proudly speak out for every success he has wrested from the Republicans, the new Party of Hate & Fear, that has nothing left to over but division itself. RE-ELECT THE PREZ 2012!!!
I never bought that story for a minute.
In fact, The first network news reports of his B/L's death stated that he had been killed a week earlier, and that DNA had been confirmed.
The W/H "scrubbed" report said he had been killed earlier the same day....therefore, it is apparent that no DNA had been determined, and the corpse was buried at sea before sunset.
As a result of that blunder, which of you has ever seen so much as a picture of the dead Bin Laden ??
Why is "upsetting the Muslim world" no longer a concern to Bama, as he boasts of the killing of Bin Laden as a keystone of his accomplishments during his Presidency ?
I am sure there truth to the news report that he left the decision to one of his Admirals, instructing him to use his own discretion
in the matter.
I guess nothing is off limits, when it come to a re-election campaign...
I never bought that story for a minute.
In fact, The first network news reports of his B/L's death stated that he had been killed a week earlier, and that DNA had been confirmed.
The W/H "scrubbed" report said he had been killed earlier the same day....therefore, it is apparent that no DNA had been determined, and the corpse was buried at sea before sunset.
As a result of that blunder, which of you has ever seen so much as a picture of the dead Bin Laden ??
Why is "upsetting the Muslim world" no longer a concern to Bama, as he boasts of the killing of Bin Laden as a keystone of his accomplishments during his Presidency ?
I am sure there truth to the news report that he left the decision to one of his Admirals, instructing him to use his own discretion
in the matter.
I guess nothing is off limits, when it come to a re-election campaign...