‘obama’s missing bravado’

Daily Beast: Obama has nearly decimated al Qaeda. Why doesn’t he brag about it? Michael Tomasky on liberals’ squeamishness at thumping their chests — and the endless victory lap that Bush would have taken.

The immediate political question raised by the successful drone attack that took out Anwar al-Awlaki is simple. How much credit will Barack Obama get for this? He ordered renewed drone attacks in Yemen earlier this year, and now, we see clear results. But I doubt Obama will derive much political benefit….

When that SEAL team nailed Osama bin Laden, Obama got about a five-point bounce out of it, but it washed away as quickly as a wave on a beach….

…. Imagine if the Bush administration had killed bin Laden, under circumstances as daring as the ones under which he actually was put on ice by the Obama administration. Imagine what that week would have been like. On Fox News, we’d have been subjected to endless Soviet-style encomia to our heroic leader … in all likelihood, Bush and Cheney and Rummy and Condi would have dashed around the country making speeches … in the presence of some of the very 9/11 widows whom the Bushies aspersed for wanting things like an honest commission investigation into how 9/11 happened in the first place.

Obama didn’t do it. He held the press conference the night it happened. He quietly and tastefully — and wordlessly — laid a wreath at Ground Zero….

… the Obama administration has decimated al Qaeda in Iraq and Pakistan over the last three years…..(but) liberals don’t generally gloat about these things. It may cost Obama a few points in the opinion polls. But it’s the more honorable course for the country. We should go get these people, but we should be humble about it.

Full article here

Thanks Jackie

a couple of things….

(Random photo that I love)

(1) OUTRAGE in the Right Wing and Professional Left media over the President’s reference to Robert Gibbs’ “relatively modest pay”. Don’t any of these people understand the word “relatively”? Get a dictionary! The context would have been obvious to an intellectually-challenged giraffe: the President was making the point that Gibbs could have earned a lot more in the private sector the last two years – working, for example, as a lobbyist – but chose to work for government.

What’s that? A fact.

(2) SNEERING in the Right Wing and Professional Left media over how much more applause Pete Rouse got, compared to Bill Daley, at yesterday’s Chief of Staff announcement by the President. Even an intellectually-challenged tomato could have figured that one out – the room was filled with White House colleagues of Rouse who, clearly, adored the fella. Daley? Um, he’s brand new to the Obama administration, so he hasn’t had the chance yet to make any White House friends.

What’s that? A fact.