The Place Where Ludington Talks
Humility Contest: GWB vs. BHO
The recent capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, and its announcement by our president, brought to mind the fairly recent announcement of Saddam Hussein's capture by then President George W. Bush. One cannot but help and notice how humble GWB was at the announcement. Praise was heaped elsewhere by him on the actual people who did the work-- even though he had taken plenty of heat for having sent troops into Iraq in an exercise that was called Bush's War by his critics-- leaving him an excellent opportunity to gloat this small triumph. But he didn't:
Now let's compare that with President Obama's reportage of the death of Osama. He explains some of the details in the first three minutes of the operation, and then explains his pivotal role in the whole scheme of things:
"Shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against Al Qaeda... then last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden... I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden... finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound..."
"Let me be clear" is one of the presidents pet phrases. He sure wanted it to be clear that HE was the guy behind all this. With the possible exception of Bill Clinton, has there ever been such a narcissistic president than what we have now?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by AQUAMAN on
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Victory has a hundred fathers, and failure is an orphan, a former President once quoted. That former President resolved to admit his failures and shortcomings to the media, and was humble about his triumphs. This President has nothing in common with the former, JFK, and this last news alert magnifies that issue.
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Permalink Reply by XLFD on
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On another George W Bush front (and please don't consider me a GWB apologist-- he flubbed up enough during his second term to ruin my unconditional support of him), I came across another snippet concerning him the other day when checking something else out.
He has often been roundly criticized by folks about his decision to continue reading a storybook to a school he was visiting after he was notified that the second tower had been hit on 9-11. A few of the kids in that class were recently interviewed and said that they thought the president's action that day should not be criticized, and it helped them get through that time and on with their life. The ones interviewed also noted they had seen GWB's whole demeanor change when he was notified and knew something was wrong, a point that can be seen if you view his unedited 10 minute visit to that classroom. NY Post 9-11 Kids
Should he have got up and left when he heard the news, like most of his critics suggest?
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Permalink Reply by Dave on
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Beat me to it, I was going to post a story regarding the kids in the classroom myself, got sidetracked of course. Anyhow, here's another link to Time magazines story on the subject:
Time Magazine.. 9/11 school kids/Bush
As far as the question regarding what should he of done goes, I think he did exactly the right thing. While his presidency will never be considered one of the best and there was plenty that went wrong, by not jumping up and running out of the room or screaming "OMG OMG OMG OMG", I think he kept the situation as calm and collected as he could under the circumstances. In reading what the kids in the room thought at the time, its obvious it was the right thing to do. Those that think he was wrong will probably always think that but I'd just like to know what they think he should of done.
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