“If you disclose how we got there, how we took down the building, what we did, how many people were there, that it’s going to hinder future operations, and certainly hurt the success of those future operations.”
It seems like awfully weak tea. Stating how many peiople were there, for example, is going to dame future operations? Surprise, they got there in a helicopter instead of a magic flying carpet!
I assume these guys could all point to having voiced similar concerns when we learned the details of how Saddam was found and dug out of the hole he was hiding in…
Are we totally sure this wasn’t something cooked up by the Onion?
Yeah, who does he think he is, acting like he’s somebody important.
Interesting quote from Scott Taylor, the head of the organization complaining about how Obama stole other people’s credit: “If you disclose how we got there, how we took down the building, what we did, how many people were there, that it’s going to hinder future operations, and certainly hurt the success of those future operations.”
Somebody reading this might think that Taylor was there in Pakistan. Which would have been unlikely because he left the Navy six years before bin Laden was killed.
He’s the only man in the country whose boss is everybody. That makes him lowest on the totem pole, not highest. Something every president should remember, but few do.
That’s why we always tell our children, “In America, anyone can avoid being President. So if it happens to you, it’s your own damn fault.”
It’s service, it’s not exaltation. It’s actually the opposite, and meant to be. The fact that many Americans don’t realize that and equate the president more with a monarch is a failure of education.
But the fact remains that the President works for us.
Which really has nothing to do with what you said. Getting elected President is an accomplishment. So’s getting nominated for President and getting elected Senator and graduating from Harvard Law School.
And I’m not singling him out. Mitt Romney is also a highly accomplished man by any reasonable standards. Mediocre people don’t run for President.
So complaining that the President has “self regard” is foolish.
Presidents are supposed to have humility. This President lacks that and he lacked it as a candidate as well.
The word you’re looking for is “uppity.”
Once again, you are spot on. Adaher’s comment is one step away from “Presidents [of a certain hue] should know their place,” UNLESS he/she can give us some evidence that previous presidents were generally more humble and demure.
Some were, some weren’t. Some were in some situations but not in others, or in some ways but not in others.
Martin Van Buren strutted like a stuffed peacock every time he had a successful bowel movement, but John Tyler refused to take credit when he singlehandedly strangled a Prussian child molestor – IIRC, he told Harper’s Weekly that “I slipped on a banana peel, and as I fell over and tried to right myself, my hands just happened to wrap around the guy’s throat.”
Cite for “Obama taking all the credit for the raid”? I’m beginning to wonder if these people saw the same speech I did.
Wow, should we count the number of “I”'s in a George Bush speech vs. a Barack Obama speech?
Exactly! That’s the Swiftboating, right there. No need to cook up “security leaks” bullshit…just make something up about Obama’s post-operation comments or demeanor.
Facts are not the strong suit for the folks toward whom this crap is directed, obviously.
Let’s contrast:
"Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p.m. Baghdad time, United States military forces captured Saddam Hussein alive. He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit, in a swift raid conducted without casualties. And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions.
That was Bush. Here’s Obama:
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al-Qaida, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
They both gave credit to the troops, but one guy really seems to want to highlight his own role. “I”, "Me, “My”, there’s an awful lot of that.
The number of “Mission Accomplished” banners will do.
Also, which president felt the need to get a bomber jacker with his name and “President” on the front? It was like having Harriet Jones as President.
Or how about Obama’s answer to the mistakes he made as President. He just didn’t speak to the American people enough? Really? That’s why he thinks he got his ass handed to him in 2010? He just worked too darn hard at governing and didn’t have time to explain what he was doing. Except that from day 1 he’s spent a lot more time talking than doing. More cowbell!
You made two claims: that presidents are supposed to be humble, and that this one isn’t.
Both are problematic – not only are they debatable (the first, especially, is a matter of pure opinion), they are difficult to quantify.
In this forum, generalized expressions of one’s personal takes on a subject are fine. Sure, some degree of humility is usually a good quality, including in presidents. And sure, Obama sometimes gives off a vibe of academically-inclined self-confidence which some preceive as haughtiness.
But this thread is about a specific incident and how it was communicated to the public. Do you really think Obama took an undue amount of credit for it? If you do, that’s a far-fetched claim (given the actual facts of what was said), and it shows that your preferred standard for humility is indeed very, very high. Which means you must be ready to condemn ALL presidents (except John Tyler) with the same fury, if not more.
Unless you give us evidence of the even GREATER humility of past presidents.
Otherwise, yes, we are free to speculate about the nature of your double standard.
There, I said in many words what pseudotriton ruber tuber said in just a few.
If you want to cherry-pick paragraphs, we can play that game with Bush’s speech as well;
“And this afternoon, I have a message for the Iraqi people: You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again.”
“Today, on behalf of the nation, I thank the members of our Armed Forces and I congratulate 'em.”
“I also have a message for all Americans: The capture of Saddam Hussein does not mean the end of violence in Iraq.”
One will also note that Bush’s speech is considerably the shorter of the two - Bush’s speech was 7 paragraphs in length, Obama’s 24. A speech three times longer necessarily provides more opportunities for the speaker to reference himself.