Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Obama and Osama bin Laden: Happy Anniversary!

Obama wants everyone to celebrate the first anniversary of HIS accomplishment!

Happy "Osama bin Laden is Dead" Anniversary!

Although Obama gives lip service to the joint effort involved in getting bin Laden, he wants every voter to believe that the killing of bin Laden is his victory. He wants every American to recognize his accomplishment.

A CIA memo reveals that Obama's famed "gutsy call" to green-light the mission that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden wasn't very gusty at all.

Nonetheless, Obama and his team are celebrating the anniversary of Obama's alleged great achievement.

As Obama spikes the football again and again, we are supposed to buy that only Obama had the guts to give the order. Obama even has had the audacity to declare that Mitt Romney would NOT have made the "gutsy call."

Here's video of Obama shamelessly trying to attack Romney while scoring political points off the accomplishments of years of intelligence gathering and the brave members of our military:




White House transcript:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Christi Parsons.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of the killing of bin Laden. I wonder if you would share some thoughts on that anniversary. And I also wanted to mention that your likely opponent says, “Anybody would have made that call, even Jimmy Carter.” So I’m curious to see what you would say about that.

And, Mr. Prime Minister, if I may, on the same topic, you mentioned the international fight against terrorism in your opening remarks, and I wonder if you could reflect on President Obama’s record here and if you think from an international perspective the U.S. is playing it right in marking this anniversary? Or if you think it -- you might advise against excessive celebration?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, let me make a couple of points. First of all, Christi, I hardly think that you’ve seen any excessive celebration taking place here. I think that people -- the American people rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens. And it’s a mark of the excellence of our intelligence teams and our military teams; a political process that worked. And I think for us to use that time for some reflection to give thanks to those who participated is entirely appropriate, and that's what’s been taking place.

As far as my personal role and what other folks would do, I’d just recommend that everybody take a look at people’s previous statements in terms of whether they thought it was appropriate to go into Pakistan and take out bin Laden. I assume that people meant what they said when they said it. That's been at least my practice. I said that I’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did.

If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.

This makes me sick.

Obama is so slippery and sleazy.

He knows Mitt Romney would have given the order to kill bin Laden. He doesn't want you to know.

I'm not "celebrating" this anniversary.

I'm thankful bin Laden was brought to justice in this life. I trust he has received justice in the next.

But celebrate? No.

Obama's celebration of the anniversary for political purposes is unseemly.

The exploitation of the occasion is really out of line.

Welcome to Osama bin Laden week at the White House -- both the commemoration of the raid that killed that killed the al-Qaeda leader a year ago, and the politics it is generating in the current presidential campaign.

Among the special events is an NBC News story for which the White House granted access to its super-secret Situation Room -- site of the iconic photograph of President Obama and his national security team watching the raid go down at bin Laden's compound deep inside Pakistan.

...The segment will be broadcast Wednesday night on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams, airing at 9 p.m. ET.

NBC has also interviewed others in the room, including Vice President Biden, national security Adviser Tom Donilon and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, who delivered a speech today on the status of al-Qaeda a year after bin Laden's death.

(By the way, there's some confusion about the actual anniversary date. The raid that killed bin Laden took place in the early hours of May 2, Pakistan time; the president announced bin Laden's death on the night of May 1, Washington time.)

The NBC event comes on top of an Obama political ad promoting the bin Laden raid as a prime example of foreign policy leadership by the president.

This really is too much.

Once again, Obama fails to conduct himself with dignity. He's been in office since January 20, 2009, and he still seems unpresidential.

And once again, the selfish Obama takes more credit than he's due.

From Toby Harnden:

Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign.

The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’.

In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed.

Besides the ad, the White House is marking the first anniversary of the SEAL Team Six raid that killed bin Laden inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan with a series of briefings and an NBC interview in the Situation Room designed to highlight the ‘gutsy call’ made by the President.

...Ryan Zinke, a former Commander in the US Navy who spent 23 years as a SEAL and led a SEAL Team 6 assault unit, said: ‘The decision was a no brainer. I applaud him for making it but I would not overly pat myself on the back for making the right call.

‘I think every president would have done the same. He is justified in saying it was his decision but the preparation, the sacrifice - it was a broader team effort.’

Mr Zinke, who is now a Republican state senator in Montana, added that MR Obama was exploiting bin Laden’s death for his re-election bid. ‘The President and his administration are positioning him as a war president using the SEALs as ammunition. It was predictable.’

Without question, Obama should shut up about bin Laden.

The excessive celebration and the rewriting of history, not giving the SEALS the credit they deserve, is going to hurt more than help Obama.

It makes Obama look very small.

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