If the Seals had failed .....

This week America celebrated the one year anniversary of the death of the world's leading terrorist threat, Osama bin Laden. As everyone is aware, he was taken out by a brave team of SEALS working under a plan developed by the President in consultation with the nation's leading military experts. Since that day, the President has consistently and unfailingly given credit to the brave SEALS who carried out the mission, to the many support personnel who made it happen, to the military leaders who helped design the plan, to everyone that was involved. He was the man in charge, and he was the man who had to make the decision to go in, even when many on his own staff warned against it. He put considerations of his own Presidency aside in the interests of the nation, knowing that if the mission had failed it would pretty much have ended his chances of re-election.

But all we have heard from the Right Wing is that "Obama is an egotist" and "Obama is taking credit for other people's work" and "All Obama did was say 'yes'". There are even those who are trying to shift credit to George Bush, despite ample evidence that he spent seven years doing everything he could to prevent bin Laden's capture, from refusing to finish the job at Tora Bora to disbanding a CIA special ops unit in place since the Clinton Administration with the sole purpose of tracking down bin Laden. Some have even tried to claim that Bush's illegal and unconstitutional waterboarding program helped to bring bin Laden to justice, even though everyone up to Donald Rumsfeld himself have confirmed that no actionable intelligence on bin Laden was ever gathered through torture.

So the President had nothing to do with the successful mission to get bin Laden, according to the Right Wing. He was just a figurehead and deserves no credit.

What if the mission had failed? What if, despite the best intentions and the most thorough planning possible, the Seals had failed to carry out the mission? What are the chances that this same Right wing that has spent a year claiming that President Obama had nothing to do with the mission would be saying "don't blame Obama for the mission's failure, he had nothing to do with it."

I think we all know the answer to that one. Not only would President Obama and President Obama alone have been blamed for the failure, but he would also be accused of murdering those brave Seals and of compromising national security. (There's already a ridiculous conspiracy theory floating around that the President secretly had the Seals killed so they couldn't talk LOL)

The President deserves all the credit he has gotten for his part in the successful mission. He has never wavered in his admiration for the Seals who carried it out and has always given credit to everyone involved.

But some are too blind to ever realize this.

Thank you, Mister President, for getting the job done. And thank you to the Seals and the others who you worked with to get it done.