Jon Meacham: Why Obama Owns bin Laden

[Drunken Irishman]

http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/30/why-obama-owns-bin-laden/?iid=op-main-lede?xid%3Dgonewsedit&google_editors_picks=true#ixzz1tXPuq3IV

The advertisement coincides with a flurry of media projects marking the anniversary of the killing, including a large-scale broadcast by NBC News’ Brian Williams that includes an interview with the President in the Situation Room.

Republicans are — forgive the cliché — shocked, shocked to discover that a presidential contender is “politicizing” an important national event. In this sense, “politicizing” might be best translated as “beating us up and we don’t have anything much to say to stop it.” The ad itself raises intriguing, substantive, legitimate questions — and the ferocious, sputtering Republican reaction is proof positive that they know it, or at least suspect it.

The ad’s theme is that Obama made a courageous and risky decision to send in the SEALs. Here the President has history and facts on his side: it was a courageous and risky call. Had the mission failed, had it been another Desert One, the very people now criticizing the President for trumpeting the achievement would be beginning their second year of excoriating Obama for weakness and fecklessness. And anyone weighing whether to re-elect the President should take the bin Laden operation into account: it is a powerful exhibit that Obama is a steely Commander in Chief — a critical test for many Americans.

[calimary]

1. And every last one of the doubters and dissers should be reminded -

"hey, YOUR guy practically tatttooed it across his face! And take your pick - dubya, or rudy giuliani. Both of 'em draped themselves in that smoldering rubble SHAMELESSLY, used it at every possible opportunity, shoved it in our faces and up our behinds, damn near 24/7. But no, they sure weren't politicizing it, were they?

[amuse bouche]

2. Who knew Repubs

had such reverence for Bin Laden. Are they trying to protect his good name?

[GoCubsGo]

3. Meacham leans conservative.

So, it's nice to see this coming from him. Glad he's not parroting the latest "anyone would have done that" meme.

[quaker bill]

4. Obama is a guy that as President will

stand in front of 1000 troops in Baghdad in a gym with cameras rolling, take a basketball and drop a three pointer to start his speech. He has no shortage of self confidence.

He made it very clear that he would go into Pakistan and kill Bin Laden, if he could get a shot at doing so. Everyone else running thought this was a crazy thing to say, most notably of late Rmoney, but he was no exception, basically all of them took issue with this. True to his word, the day he took office he made it many people's full time job to find OBL and get his this shot.

I never had a moment's doubt he would do this.

OBL's head was simply far too big a trophy to pass on.

Obama could not end the wars unless he delivered OBL on a platter. We were never going to leave if OBL was still alive, there was far too much risk of an attack OBL could claim credit for (even if he had nothing to do with it) if he was still alive. No President (R or D) was ever going to pull the troops and leave this landmine on the field by choice.

The notion that Obama would not run on having accomplished this is simply silly. He gets to claim he did it, because he did. It takes their "strong defense" issue off the table, and they don't and actually shouldn't like that very much. They do not have a substitute narritive and they know it. Every time they go back to this well, BHO can fairly state that (they may bluster alot but) "I killed OBL and they didn't". Count on it being featured at the convention.

[JoePhilly]

5. Obama took their binky.