Obama Is Now Warrior in Chief

Remember when President Obama decried interrogation as "torture"? Those techniques brought him this victory, and it is a victory for the President. His speech Sunday was marvelous, for the first time in his term he was proud to be the POTUS. Until that speech it often seemed he believed himself elected president of the world. Here is hoping he goes on to be the President we hoped he would be when we elected him. I am sorry his hands are now dirty, perhaps this will humble his soul. He pushed himself out ot the academic laboratory and into real life on this one.

Chants of "kiss him goodby" are unseemly. We have seen crowds of fanatics cheering the beheading of a supposed enemy, it is ugly. Paul Brown once told an overexuberant player, "Next time you get to the endzone, act like you've been there before". Death is serious and warrants neither celebration or candlelight vigil by strangers.

I have great doubt that Barack Obama saved the nation from financial collapse, and that his healthcare reform is anything less than an obtrusive government power grab, but I am glad he was able to give the order and handled the details so well. He may owe his predecessor an apology on that torture thing, though.

Since when is not our foreign (military) policy not a continuum from one administration to the next? This was the culmination of many years of dedicated work.

"Remember when President Obama decried interrogation as "torture"?" -- No, Tom, I don't remember that, because it didn't happen. I'm sorry if you don't know the difference between interrogation and torture, but most of us do. Nobody decries ordinary interrogation. And, no, torture didn't get us useful information. Old-fashioned on-the-ground intelligence did, which involves creating relationships with people, not torturing them. You've watched too much "24".

Yes, I wish bin Laden had been captured alive, to be tried in The Hague by the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity. (Right before GWB's trial. Guess I'm a dreamer.)

On Tuesday this week Leon Pannetta, CIA Director, said waterboarding was used to extract the information that led to the identity of the courier. Waterboarding was identified by candidate Obame as torture. Sorry you don't remember that, look up BHO's first two executive orders if you want to jog your memory. It did happen.

"Obama Is Now Warrior in Chief"

No, Obama is (as he always was) Commander-in-Chief.

Warriors fight, bleed and die. They put their lives at risk and often spend their lives remembering the copper taste, adrenalin shakes and screams of the wounded that accompany the risks they take.

Obama did a good job in this as CinC, but he isn't a warrior and never has been.

Agree with Ken from WI.

Roger, I must disagree with the idea that Obama is a warrior. He is a Civilain whose current office grants him command the military. We have not had a president since Ronald Regan who has genuinely served in uniform and to equate Obama, the man, with those SEALs who did their duty is insulting to all those in uniform. His office grants him to make the decision. He sat in the White House and ordered men to do what they were sworn to do. An easy decision when compared with the true risk those men who actually did the work incurred.

Lets not drink too much cool-aid and forget Obama,s many, many BROKEN promises:

- End income tax for seniors making less than $50,000
- Introduce a comprehensive immigration bill in the first year
- Create a public option health plan for a new National Health Insurance Exchange.
- Centralize ethics and lobbying information for voters
- Allow five days of public comment before signing bills
- Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials
- Allow bankruptcy judges to modify terms of a home mortgage
- Allow penalty-free hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts in 2008 and 2009
- No family making less than $250,000 will see "any form of tax increase."
- Expand the child and dependent care credit
- Create a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners
- Allow imported prescription drugs
- Forbid companies in bankruptcy from giving executives bonuses

Why do we distrust him?

I enjoyed hearing of the demise of bin Laden; however, would like to see the photos of bin Laden dead. But, I'd rather the photos not be released because things like that can be scary to some people, especially kids and the mentally weak. Besides, releasing the photos could possible inflame radical Islamist to do something crazy, as they did on 9/11.
Why not just gather a group of ethical, trusted and impartial adults willing to view the photos and show them the photos, review the evidence and let them decide if indeed its bin Laden.
If we had a strong, decisive president, he would do just that. But only Obama could so screw up this great moment with public soul-searching about the release of the bin Laden's death photos, and the water-boarding that led to it.
The only thing that is genuine about Obama is how he feels. He has no principles to hold to, no belief system to check him. He has only his feelings and the mirror he stares into.
He thinks he is and tries to act like Mr. Cool, which he is not; but his feelings wear through on decision after decision. Obama projected a strong image, when he announced that Seal Team Six had killed bin Laden. I'll give him that; it was his moment. He has had very few successes and gotten few decisions right, he needs to slap himself on the back.
But all of that good will Obama gained is now gone away, by his hand-wringing. His indecisiveness is undermining his administration that earned this successful mission. We should remember to thank those who made this possible. Without the courage and professionalism of our men and women in uniform and in the intelligence services, this victory would not have been achieved. Recognize that it was the controversial policies of George Bush that were the catalysts making the demise of bin Laden possible.
This victory is only a milestone in a long war. We must also recognize the long struggle ahead. Radical Islamism did not start with bin Laden and it will not end with his death. This is the 32nd year since the Iranian dictatorship seized our diplomats illegally and held them hostage for 444 days. It has been 28 years since Iranian-supported terrorists killed 241 servicemen in Beirut in 1983.
What is even worse, the administration is pouting because; George Bush's policies might be getting some credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Some in the administration have grown discouraged because the sudden news over the killing of Osama bin Laden; has turned into a debate over the efficacy of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). It's not possible to even know whether or not the information obtained by EITs could have been obtained by other forms of interrogation; nor the time frame it would take. They will not give credit where credit is due; to George Bush, even if he was right, because that would distract from Obama.
I have no desire to see a president wrestle publicly with these decisions or act less than presidential. Being president is not a reality TV show where we watch the contestants have to make tough choices. I don't care about a president's innermost feelings. Presidents are supposed to rise above all of that and be...well...Presidential.
From the beginning Obama's image has been that he doesn't like making decisions, that he doesn't attract personal loyalty and that he can't see past his own manufactured mirror image; which has obscured a bigger and scarier picture.
Obama publicly campaigned against the very policies he is now supporting. He has gone from the extreme of a candidate arguing that enemy combatants should enjoy the same rights of presumed innocence that alleged criminals receive, to a president signing the assassination order of an American citizen in Yemen under non-combat conditions.
You can argue the merits of either case plausibly. But it takes a special type of moral ambiguity for the same person to argue wholeheartedly for both cases at the same time. Obama has that kind of moral ambiguity.
He's shown the willingness to take both sides of every question on Libya, oil, taxes, spending, campaign funding, GITMO, his pastor, his birth certificate, drug use, smoking, transparency and his carbon foot print.
He's become the “Please Look-At-Me" president. It doesn't matter what he does as long as he keeps seeing himself in the mirror. And he seems blissfully unaware that he's so obsessed with himself. And that scares me!

I enjoyed hearing of the demise of bin Laden; however, would like to see the photos of bin Laden dead. But, I'd rather the photos not be released because things like that can be scary to some people, especially kids and the mentally weak. Besides, releasing the photos could possible inflame radical Islamist to do something crazy, as they did on 9/11.


Why not just gather a group of ethical, trusted and impartial adults willing to view the photos and show them the photos, review the evidence and let them decide if indeed its bin Laden.


If we had a strong, decisive president, he would do just that. But only Obama could so screw up this great moment with public soul-searching about the release of the bin Laden's death photos, and the water-boarding that led to it.


The only thing that is genuine about Obama is how he feels. He has no principles to hold to, no belief system to check him. He has only his feelings and the mirror he stares into.


He thinks he is and tries to act like Mr. Cool, which he is not; but his feelings wear through on decision after decision. Obama projected a strong image, when he announced that Seal Team Six had killed bin Laden. I'll give him that; it was his moment. He has had very few successes and gotten few decisions right, he needs to slap himself on the back.


But all of that good will Obama gained is now gone away, by his hand-wringing. His indecisiveness is undermining his administration that earned this successful mission. We should remember to thank those who made this possible. Without the courage and professionalism of our men and women in uniform and in the intelligence services, this victory would not have been achieved. Recognize that it was the controversial policies of George Bush that were the catalysts making the demise of bin Laden possible.


This victory is only a milestone in a long war. We must also recognize the long struggle ahead. Radical Islamism did not start with bin Laden and it will not end with his death. This is the 32nd year since the Iranian dictatorship seized our diplomats illegally and held them hostage for 444 days. It has been 28 years since Iranian-supported terrorists killed 241 servicemen in Beirut in 1983.


What is even worse, the administration is pouting because; George Bush's policies might be getting some credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden. Some in the administration have grown discouraged because the sudden news over the killing of Osama bin Laden; has turned into a debate over the efficacy of enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs). It's not possible to even know whether or not the information obtained by EITs could have been obtained by other forms of interrogation; nor the time frame it would take. They will not give credit where credit is due; to George Bush, even if he was right, because that would distract from Obama.


I have no desire to see a president wrestle publicly with these decisions or act less than presidential. Being president is not a reality TV show where we watch the contestants have to make tough choices. I don't care about a president's innermost feelings. Presidents are supposed to rise above all of that and be...well...Presidential.


From the beginning Obama's image has been that he doesn't like making decisions, that he doesn't attract personal loyalty and that he can't see past his own manufactured mirror image; which has obscured a bigger and scarier picture.


Obama publicly campaigned against the very policies he is now supporting. He has gone from the extreme of a candidate arguing that enemy combatants should enjoy the same rights of presumed innocence that alleged criminals receive, to a president signing the assassination order of an American citizen in Yemen under non-combat conditions.


You can argue the merits of either case plausibly. But it takes a special type of moral ambiguity for the same person to argue wholeheartedly for both cases at the same time. Obama has that kind of moral ambiguity.


He's shown the willingness to take both sides of every question on Libya, oil, taxes, spending, campaign funding, GITMO, his pastor, his birth certificate, drug use, smoking, transparency and his carbon foot print.


He's become the “Please Look-At-Me" president. It doesn't matter what he does as long as he keeps seeing himself in the mirror. And he seems blissfully unaware that he's so obsessed with himself. And that scares me!

““I have this theory about Barack Obama. I think he's led a kind of make-believe life in which money was provided and doors were opened because at some point early on somebody or some group took a look at this tall, good looking, half-white, half-black, young man with an exotic African/Muslim name and concluded he could be guided toward a life in politics where his facile speaking skills could even put him in the White House.

In a very real way, he has been a young man in a very big hurry. Who else do you know has written two memoirs before the age of 45? "Dreams of My Father" was published in 1995 when he was only 34 years old. The "Audacity of Hope" followed in 2006. If, indeed, he did write them himself. There are some who think that his mentor and friend, Bill Ayers, a man who calls himself a "communist with a small 'c'" was the real author.

His political skills consisted of rarely voting on anything that might be deemed controversial. He went from a legislator in the Illinois legislature to the Senator from that state because he had the good fortune of having Mayor Daley's formidable political machine at his disposal.

He was in the U.S. Senate so briefly that his bid for the presidency was either an act of astonishing self-confidence or part of some greater game plan that had been determined before he first stepped foot in the Capital. How, many must wonder, was he selected to be a 2004 keynote speaker at the Democrat convention that nominated John Kerry when virtually no one had ever even heard of him before?

He outmaneuvered Hillary Clinton in primaries. He took Iowa by storm. A charming young man, an anomaly in the state with a very small black population, he oozed "cool" in a place where agriculture was the antithesis of cool. He dazzled the locals. And he had an army of volunteers drawn to a charisma that hid any real substance.

And then he had the great good fortune of having the Republicans select one of the most inept candidates for the presidency since Bob Dole. And then John McCain did something crazy. He picked Sarah Palin, an unknown female governor from the very distant state of Alaska. It was a ticket that was reminiscent of 1984's Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro and they went down to defeat.

The mainstream political media fell in love with him. It was a schoolgirl crush with febrile commentators like Chris Mathews swooning then and now over the man. The venom directed against McCain and, in particular, Palin, was extraordinary.

Now, with over 2 years into his first term, all of those gilded years leading up to the White House have left him unprepared to be President. Left to his own instincts, he has a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. It swiftly became a joke that he could not deliver even the briefest of statements without the ever-present Tele-Prompters.

Far worse, however, is his capacity to want to "wish away" some terrible realities, not the least of which is the Islamist intention to destroy America and enslave the West. Any student of history knows how swiftly Islam initially spread. It knocked on the doors of Europe, having gained a foothold in Spain.

The great crowds that greeted him at home or on his campaign "world tour" were no substitute for having even the slightest grasp of history and the reality of a world filled with really bad people with really bad intentions.

Oddly and perhaps even inevitably, his political experience, a cakewalk, has positioned him to destroy the Democrat Party's hold on power in Congress because in the end it was never about the Party. It was always about his Communist/Marxist ideology, learned at an early age from family, mentors, college professors, and extreme leftist friends and colleagues.

Obama is a man who could deliver a snap judgment about a Boston police officer who arrested an "obstreperous" Harvard professor-friend, but would warn Americans against "jumping to conclusions" about a mass murderer at Fort Hood who shouted "Allahu Akbar." The absurdity of that was lost on no one. He has since compounded this by calling the Christmas bomber "an isolated extremist" only to have to admit a day or two later that he was part of an al Qaeda plot.

He is a man who could strive to close down our detention facility at Guantanamo even though those released were known to have returned to the battlefield against America. He could even instruct his Attorney General to afford the perpetrator of 9/11 a civil trial when no one else would ever even consider such an obscenity. And he is a man who could wait three days before having anything to say about the perpetrator of yet another terrorist attack on Americans and then have to elaborate on his remarks the following day because his first statement was so lame.

He is a man and CIC that; as a civilian, because of his background and associations could never hold a security clearance of any kind; now has access to very high-level secrets of not only the US, but other nation's secrets they have shared with us. Make me shutter at what Obama may do or not do.

He is a man that says he is a Christian; yet, acts as a supporter of all things Islam. Sanctioning the building of a Mosque at “Ground Zero” and then saying, he will not comment on the wisdom of doing it.

The pattern repeats itself. He either blames any problem on the Bush administration or he naively seeks to wish away the truth.

Knock, knock…Anyone home...Anyone there…? Barack Obama exists only as the sock puppet of his handlers, of the people who have maneuvered and manufactured this pathetic individual's life.

When anyone else would quickly and easily produce a birth certificate, this man has spent over a million dollars to deny access to his…WHY? Most other documents, the paper trail we all leave in our wake, have been sequestered from review…WHY? He has lived a make-believe life whose true facts remain hidden.

We laugh at the ventriloquist's dummy, but what do you do when the dummy is President of the United States of America?””