This week I have watched with interest the pride and fervor with which the Left is applauding President Obama for his takedown of Osama bin Laden. I’m with them. The president did the right thing and I’m thankful for his decision and for the skilled Americans who got the job done. Still, you’d have to be wearing blinders and earmuffs not to notice a few, well, shall we say, inconsistencies between the Left’s pride over President Obama’s course of action and techniques, and the Left’s horror over President Bush’s course of action and techniques. Michael Barone lays it out quite well in this Washington Examiner piece. Here’s a sample:
Obama deserves credit also for employing the Navy SEALs who are part of the Joint Special Operations Command. It was fashionable a few years ago to call the JSOC Cheney’s death squad and Cheney’s assassination team.
The assumption behind such criticism was that Bush administration officials were using what they termed the war against terrorism as a smokescreen for persecuting domestic dissidents. But there is not a scrap of evidence that either the Bush administration or the Obama administration were doing anything of the kind. They were too busy trying to protect us.
There was criticism as well of the idea of targeting particular individuals for assassination. But in ordering the raid on bin Laden’s compound Obama authorized the killing of bin Laden. And no Miranda warnings first.
Proving once again that the hateful venom spewed by the Left about President Bush and Vice President Cheney — which continues to this day — was never about policy disagreements. It was — and is — about hate.
