I have to confess I was a little uncomfortable with the ad from team Obama on Bin Laden, from the perspective of these types of attacks (Mitt Romney might not have made the same decision to send Navy SEALs into Pakistan) are best left historically to surrogates. Like the President did do with Vice President Joe Biden, "Bin Laden is dead, General Motors is alive," and former President Bill Clinton from the actual commercial.
It opened the door for the President to be criticized, and there has been an avalanche of that from Republicans. A little Sarcasm here. Attacks are done with debt limit, and even unemployment for fellow Americans that have worked their entire lives and suddenly fallen on hard times, so why should this issue be any different.
Here is what is undeniable. President Obama deserves full credit for the decision to authorize the highly risky operation, and the risks of failure were great.
Those that are criticizing Obama now on Bin Laden are being disingenuous, clearly not wanting to give him credit for a major Foreign Policy Success going back to the night Bin Laden was killed.
This is the subject after all where the American People were often told Mr. Obama would not be able to succeed. Instead of Foreign Policy being his Achilles' heel that would actually lead to his downfall politically, Foreign Policy has turned out to be his major strength.
Remember the almost back handed compliments a year ago?
The insistence that almost equal credit for Bin Laden belonged to the Bush White House. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) issued this statement at the time.
"The men and women of our armed forces and intelligence community have fought valiantly for the last decade and this is a major victory and testament to their dedication. I commend President Obama who has followed the vigilance of President Bush in bringing Bin Laden to justice."
Some Republicans and even some GOP Presidential candidates went out of their way to avoid mentioning the President's role in the mission. Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin thanked the military and intelligence communities — and omitted other players.
Other Republicans took to Cable News Shows to declare the real hero of the Pakistan raid was President George W. Bush. Top Bush administration officials like Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld pushed the idea that the raid was only possible because of intelligence gathered through controversial measures like "enhanced interrogation."
"I think the tools that President Bush put into place — GITMO, rendition, enhanced interrogation, the vast effort to collect and collate this information — obviously served his successor quite well," Rove said on Fox News.
We took on this topic on RNN-TV, the "Richard French Live Show." You can see it here.
Marking the anniversary at a New York City fire house that lost 11 men on Sept. 11, 2001, Romney said he understood the president's desire to take credit for killing one of the world's most-wanted men.
"It's totally appropriate for the president to express to the American people the view that he has that he had an important role in taking out Osama bin Laden," Romney said after visiting the lower Manhattan fire station with Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center's twin towers and killed nearly 3,000 people.
"I think politicizing it and trying to draw a distinction between himself and myself was an inappropriate use of the very important event that brought America together," Romney said.
I know I'm daydreaming here, but wouldn't it be nice if Republicans just stood up and gave Obama the credit on Bin Laden he is due, and vice versa for Democrats to Republicans. It might go a long way to ending the partisan gridlock in Washington,
Yes, perhaps there is naivety on that one. Yes, I might have a better chance with "a dollar and a dream" than ending the gridlock. After all it is a Presidential election year. Perhaps I should just dream on.
The truth is though, Republicans for a year now, have only begrudgingly given President Obama credit for Bin Laden. Just imagine what would have happened if the mission had failed.