President Glory Hog imitates leadership

Charles Krauthammer:

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The article could have been titled "Barack Obama: Drone Warrior." Great detail on how Obama personally runs the assassination campaign. On-the-record quotes from the highest officials.

This was no leak. This was a White House press release. Why? To portray Obama as tough guy.

And why now? Because in crisis after recent crisis, Obama has looked particularly weak: standing helplessly by as thousands are massacred in Syria; being played by Iran in nuclear negotiations, now reeling with the collapse of the latest round in Baghdad; being treated with contempt by Vladimir Putin, who blocks any action on Syria or Iran and adds personal insult by standing up Obama at the latter's G-8 and NATO summits.

The Obama camp thought that any political problem with foreign policy would be cured by the Osama bin Laden operation. But the administration's attempt to politically exploit the raid's one-year anniversary backfired, earning ridicule and condemnation for its crude appropriation of the heroic acts of others.

A campaign ad had Bill Clinton praising Obama for the courage of ordering the raid because, had it failed and Americans been killed, "the downside would have been horrible for him." Outraged veterans released a response ad pointing out that it would have been considerably more horrible for the dead SEALs.

Obama only compounded the self-aggrandizement problem when he spoke a week later about the military "fighting on my behalf."

The Osama-slayer card having been vastly overplayed, what to do? A new card: Obama, drone warrior, steely and solitary, delivering death with cool dispatch to the rest of the al-Qaeda depth chart.

So the peacemaker, Nobel laureate, nuclear disarmer, apologizer to the world for America having lost its moral way when it harshly interrogated the very people Obama now kills, has become — just in time for the 2012 campaign — Zeus the Avenger, smiting by lightning strike.

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There is more.

The Obama campaign reeks of desperation and has an almost amateur quality with all the self aggrandizement.  Is he using telepathy to read the terrorist their constitutional rights before offing them?  The guy who would rather turn a Hezballah murderer loose than bring him to Gitmo, is cool with killing him if he wonders into the right spot where we have a drone available.  It is hard to recover their internal hard drives and the information on it if their brains have been splattered.

I am OK with killing the enemy, but what is the strategy here.  Aren't we better off capturing as many as we can and interrogating them.  According to Obama that is morally repugnant, but hitting them with a shot from a remote control drone is heroic?

It is hard to remember a more inept roll out of a reelection campaign.