It’s been a year since Virginia’s own SEAL Team Six executed a near flawless operation that resulted in the death of the most wanted man on earth. While it is distasteful to me that we celebrate the death of any man, even one as flawed as Osama bin Laden, today is the anniversary of one of the key victories in the global war on terror.
And it’s been cheapened by politics and a Presidential campaign that has thrown the dignity of the office of the President out the window. The defining attribute of the permanent Obama campaign machine is that they always go one bridge too far.
President Obama promised a year ago that he wouldn’t release photos of Bin Laden’s corpse taken by our sailors on the ground, saying there was no need to “spike the football.” That was an appropriate decision. And while I may have criticized how some of the information regarding the raid was revealed, overall I felt that the President handled the situation with the dignity and aplomb that befitted his office.
Nobody should have expected that to last very long. That would be out of character for this man and his campaign.
One theme that hasn’t been woven throughout the President’s reelection efforts is dignity. When I get daily emails from the President himself – under his signature, not a staff or surrogate – begging me for $3 so I can have my name entered into a contest to “hang out” with him and George Clooney, it’s hard to characterize that as dignified. When those same emails are signed “Barack” like he’s an old drinking buddy of mine, when the subject line on the emails is “Hey,” I have to shake my head and long for the good old days when a fundraising request came in the mail and looked like some thought had gone into it. It’s undignified to have the President signing fundraising emails, begging for a $3 donation using the hook of a party with a Hollywood star to entice me to donate. George Clooney? Really?
The President of the United States doesn’t need to spike the football with bin Laden’s death by turning what was a victory for the American people into a crass negative ad. And he doesn’t need to use the lure of Hollywood to entice people to donate to him. If he can’t earn donations from donors who believe in his policies and visions for the future, he doesn’t deserve the donations at all. Presidents should be above this kind of pandering.
The bin Laden ad itself is distasteful. While the President deserves credit for making his decision and he should be able to highlight how he handled the situation – just as President Bush did his response to 9/11 – you take it a step too far by turning what was a positive, feel good piece about America into an attack against Mitt Romney. To flat out claim that Romney would not have made the same decision Obama did is not only implausibly absurd, it is simply untrue. No President in the same situation would have failed to act. Even Jimmy Carter authorized a raid into Iran to get our hostages back – a mission that failed for a variety of reasons. If Jimmy Carter, arguably the worst President in the last seventy years, made that kind of a decision, no one can honestly say Romney would have failed to do the same. It’s an argument that doesn’t pass the laugh test.
And it’s an argument that didn’t have to be made.
That’s one of the problems with President Obama. He never stops when he’s ahead. He always overreaches, going too far and tainting his victories by grabbing for the bigger, better deal. He gets his stimulus bill, then overreaches and forces Obamacare on America, which will probably cost him the White House. He can’t be content with America knowing he got bin Laden, he’s got to claim his opponent wouldn’t have made the same decision. He can’t be content with hosting more fundraisers during his term in office than every other President since Nixon combined, he’s got to have his campaign send out dozens of emails a day begging for $3 to win a chance to meet George Clooney. It’s the bridge too far on each of these issues that demeans the Presidency and turns legitimate victories into farces.
Look at how Mitt Romney handled the bin Laden mission. Here’s his statement: ““Today marks the one year anniversary of the mission that brought Osama bin Laden to justice. That mission was the culmination of nearly a decade of hard work and sacrifice by our men and women in the military and intelligence communities. I commend all those who planned and conducted the bin Laden raid, and I applaud President Obama for giving the go ahead for the mission. Let us never forget the thousands of innocents who perished on September 11, 2001, or the brave servicemen and women who have given their lives to defeat those who would do harm to our country. They, and their families, are forever in our thoughts and prayers.”
That’s dignified and presidential. It’s a breath of fresh air from what we’ve been getting from Obama’s campaign.
The death of Osama bin Laden was a victory for the American people and an opportunity to bring all of us together in the same spirit we had after 9/11. That opportunity has been squandered by the President’s breathtaking lack of humility and his campaign’s inability to recognize any boundaries.
The more this kind of thing goes on, the more I think Jimmy Kimmel got it right: “There’s a term for guys like President Obama. Probably not two terms.”
