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lol, now I've been promoted to traitor! neato.

Wheel is right, posts are disappearing. WTF is going on?

Yeah, you've kinda gone off the deep end dude. Go get some sleep.

Just go slow. You'll be fine, I think. It's really not that hard. Maybe you can take a night class or something.

7 Minutes Vs. 16 Hours: How The Media Reports Delay


George Bush was relentlessly mocked for waiting seven minutes (actually waiting for his security detail to ready the exit and for his vehicle to be readied) before leaving the school he was visiting. He calmly finished reading My Pet Goat for the kids before going to his now-ready helicopter.

On the other hand, after Obama was told (most likely for the fifteenth time) that the CIA was really, really, really quite confident that Osama bin Ladin was at that compound in Abbottabad, he decided he needed to sleep on it.

Sixteen hours later (hours during which Osama might have fled-- bear in mind, his courier's name had just been outed by WikiLeaks), he made up his mind.

How does the media report this? Well, relying upon those in Obama's inner circle (that is to say, his political flunkies and spinners), we're told this:

"But the next morning after 16 hours, Obama summoned four top aides to the White House Diplomatic Room. Before they could speak, the president put his fist on the table and declared 'It's a go'."

Why does it matter that he did this "before they could speak"? They had spoken already yesterday when they strongly, strongly urged the president to give the order, and he had decided to sleep on it.

They were only waiting on him, after all.

So, after 16 hours of vacillation, during which the operation might have been rendered a failure by intervening invents, he fist-bumps a piece of furniture and finally makes up his mind.

This is something to brag about? This is, in Howard Fineman's words, "almost Biblical"?

Seems like a very cautious, feckless, indecisive individual delaying and delaying on critical decisions and then attempting to sound heroic when he finally does what he's being paid to do.

Thanks to OCBill. This is from the Daily Mail, via Drudge.


To Be Honest: I don't begrudge a president some thinking time before a big decision.

But the media still hasn't explained to me which of the previous presidents and which of the potential/hypothetical future presidents wouldn't have ordered this.

If everyone including Jimmy Carter would have ordered this, then I'm afraid I don't see why President Made a Poopie should be so praised for doing what everyone else would have done. That is, why praise him for being ordinary?

And yes, even Jimmy Carter probably would have ordered this. At least the 1970s version Bear in mind: He did order a failed hostage rescue attempt -- also fraught with peril, obviously, since the choppers crashed in the desert.

A commando hostage rescue is a lot trickier than a hit, of course. A lot more moving pieces, and you have to get all those people safely away.

So why should I praise Obama for a choice that every single one of his predecessors and every plausible successor would also make?

And probably not requiring 16 hours to do so, either.


http://ace.mu.nu/archives/315658.php




The only thing I'd add to the article is that Clinton while President had several chances to waste that **** and couldn't make the call. I suppose spraying an intern's blue dress with **** rated a higher priority than, oh I don't know National Security?

Here we go, from time.com:

Ex-CIA Counterterror Chief: ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ Led U.S. to bin Laden


A former head of counterterrorism at the CIA, who was investigated last year by the Justice Department for the destruction of videos showing senior al-Qaeda officials being interrogated, says that the harsh questioning of terrorism suspects produced the information that eventually led to Osama bin Laden’s death.

Jose Rodriguez ran the CIA’s CounterTerrorism Center from 2002 to 2005 during the period when top al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) and Abu Faraj al-Libbi were taken into custody and subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” at secret black site prisons overseas. KSM was subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other techniques. Al Libbi was not waterboarded, but other EITs were used on him.
“Information provided by KSM and Abu Faraj al Libbi about Bin Laden’s courier was the lead information that eventually led to the location of [bin Laden’s] compound and the operation that led to his death,” Rodriguez tells TIME in his first public interview. Rodriguez was cleared of charges in the video destruction investigation last year. (Read CIA Director Leon Panetta’s first interview since the bin Laden raid.)

Full story:

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/04/did-torture-get-the-us-osama-bin-laden/#ixzz1LOdvLbW9

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/04/did-torture-get-the-us-osama-bin-laden/#ixzz1LOdiAoB2

it was stupid to be critical of Bush's 7 minutes and just damn retarded to be critical of Obama's process (based on this limited and selective information). This is just a damn stupid report. I hope no one really wastes a lot of brain matter on it.


If one was to look at the two instances one is at a time when the country was under imminent attack and no one knew what was going to happen. The other was half a world away hunting a fugitive. The better comparison would be Bush and tora bora, the lawyers delaying the drone attack, or clinton sitting on his hands then launching missles at an aspirin factory (sarcasm).

By the way... I think Operation Geronimo was a success. Usually monday morning QBing is when your team lost.

This is true but I always attributed that to the Libs. I'm starting to learn just how similar the tarians and repubs are to them.

All these folks need to shut up. Torture, deny, smile. (dispose belongs in there somewhere along with rendition and erasure)


Although as I think about it, all the idiots arguing both sides of it confuse things enough it may be effective too.


Quick question, since waterboarding is not torture should the chineese water torture be changed to the chineese water enhanced interrogaiton technique?

the goulash gulags are like our white collar prisions

Fuzz probably thinks Pinochet was unsuccessful in rooting out the commie movement from Chile too.

Eric Holder asked that key provisions of the Patriot Act be kept......oh no.

But it's ok when commies like Che and Castro do the same thing!

Um, no. Why are you once again attributing opinions to me that I have never expressed nor hold?

Do you still let them sit their beer on top of your head while they take a leak?

Actually, I think he was suggesting the opposite.

I mean...uh...just adding clarification...

OK

the rest the story

the dude at walmart waterboarded me with key lime water then the local wallyworld took all the water off the shelves. I admitted to everything.

^ mook

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This was a good thread.