Thursday, May 5, 2011

Osama bin Laden is dead and President Obama missed an opportunity for greatness

Let me start off by saying President Obama made the right decision. Eliminating Osama bin Laden was the right thing to do. I have made no secret my dislike for our President's policies, but he made the right choice this time. All of the events leading up to the decision aside, it fell upon the President to ultimately decide what to do. I would have rather seen him captured than killed, but if that's how it fell out then that's how it fell out. Sometimes you have to accept the decisions of the personnel in the field and stand by them. Monday morning quarterbacking what someone should have thought in the middle of a firefight sometime after midnight a half a world away from your comfortable bed is not how the military should be handled.

That being said, good for you, Mr President.

What he missed out on was his speech. Instead of focusing on how he made the decision and he was right to do so, he could have made strides towards ending the bitter division in our government. He could have said something along these lines:

"This is a victory for the nation. This is a victory for the men and women in uniform who performed their jobs with their usual mix of professionalism and consummate skill. This is a victory for the policies of my predecessor, without which we would not have garnered the intel that brought us to this monumental day. I have learned that good ideas are not the sole property of one political party, so from this day forward I encourage Congress, Democrat and Republican alike, to remove the party affiliation from the proposed idea and take it on its own merits. Good ideas should be put into action, regardless of source. Bad ideas should be eliminated or moderated. From this day forward my administration will lead by example in this area. Our task is not over. Our nation is not secure, but we are safer now. Let us continue the work before us to make our nation secure."

Then do it. Actually do something positive about eliminating the vitriol that has become so commonplace in our governing and legislative process. I keep hearing those on the left screaming about how Bush failed and Obama succeeded. They keep hammering that waterboarding and "black ops" prisons weren't needed to gather the information.

To fully believe this, you would have to assume that nothing Bush did contributed in any way to the intel that was gathered leading to this monumental place and that is not true. We wouldn't have had Kaleed Sheik Mohammad if not for Bush's policies. He did not provide any intel until after he was waterboarded. That intel was confirmed by other sources that were kept in those same "black ops" prisons.

This was truly a victory for the American political process for we had a Republican President start a job that a Democrat President finished. Neither one could have succeeded without the other. Those are the facts, like them or not. Mental gymnastics trying to make the facts conform to preconceived notions helps no one.

I am not saying Bush did not state repeatedly that Osama bin Laden was not his top priority. I am not saying that Obama did not state repeatedly that Osama bin Laden was his top priority. Both of those are facts. I am saying that the goals each had was reinforced and unattainable without what came before. We need to see that, accept it and realize that we are much stronger united than we could ever be divided.

President Obama could have used this moment to unite the nation behind him, guaranteeing him a second term and ushering in an era of co-operation that the Nation desperately wants and needs but he didn't. He still could, but with much less of an impact. That's a missed opportunity that I hope doesn't come back to haunt us.

We are the United States of America. Its about time we started focusing on what Unites us.