Credit and Blame

"No One among us is fortunate enough to escape either praise or blame."  (Johann wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832)

boy, howdy.....

"NO EASY DAY", the new book by navy seal mark owen, which is a phony name, tells us that osama bin laden committed suicide just before the special forces members entered his room, and that there was no forty minute fire fight outside the compound before they entered, contrary to previous reports.

And this is supposed to be a big deal. Not really. Its just primary source history, conveniently coming out, and replacing initial speculation. After all the participants have given their version, the secondary source professional historians will take over, and heaven only knows what will become of the story.

But its all good. Interestingly enough, the author of the book, whoever it is - FOX News says they know - seems to have a bit of a cynical attitude towards the whole affair, in particular, accusing president obama of taking credit for it, making political hay out of the grand event. He resents obama for it, evidently, though praises the president for giving the go ahead for the mission.

Obama approved it, and would have taken the blame had the mission failed, just as president carter did in 1980 when his hair brained idea backfired, and that in itself is reason enough for him to "take credit" for it.

But really, he doesn't take credit, and never has. Repeatedly the president has praised and credited the special forces navy seal heros.  But just the fact that obama talked about it, which really he had to, at some point, gives the misleading impression that he is trying to take credit.

Obama's campaign says "Bin laden is dead, and General Motors is alive", and, hell, what's wrong with that? Just ordinary american self promotion for political purposes, right?

"Mark Owen", a navy seal who was there when bin laden died, wrote a book about it - using a fake name. So how much credit does he really want for it anyway? Perhaps he is simply resentful that he is not allowed to take credit, while obama is. after all, all the seals agreed beforehand, were told beforehand, that their true identities would be kept secret. They were told not to talk about it.

They (the seals team members) knew going in they would never "get credit", or at least widespread fame, for a long time. And hell, obama is already famous, with or without this particular military operation, so all blame, responsibility, and credit, might as well go to him.

Let's face it. Blame and credit are usually moots points, and are definitely such in this case. We're all smart enough to understand who did what, and why.  Any first grader is gonna understand that president obama did not indeed go barging into bin laden's house with an M16 in his hands, blazing away.

Any picture of abraham lincoln should be sufficient to illuminate us as to what burdens the president bears, what responsibility he has, and for what he should be given praise, and blame.

Bb

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