Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

You're at the launch site and you hear the countdown. "Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . we have liftoff." You see the glare, hear the incredible roar of  the booster rockets firing, and see the rocket begin its long journey into space. At the Kennedy Command Center everyone applauds and gives each other 'high fives.' Then the voice of Mission Control continues going through the checklist of launch protocols. 

Inside the capsule are several astronauts who have been rocketed into space, above the atmosphere, into the black infinity. As an American, you are proud of your country and you think of those brave men and women who are literally risking their lives in the pursuit of the pioneer spirit.  They are your heroes and you don't really think of the enormous number of people who have made the mission possible. From the people who engineered the craft, the scientists who calculated the flight path, those who invented the equipment, and even those who lost their lives before this mission. No, your heroes are the men and women being hurled through space several times the speed of sound where few have gone before.

So why do we praise the man who gave the order to move ahead in a mission designed by others that killed Osama Bin Laden? He is like the voice in Mission Control announcing the countdown.  I am not trying to say President Obama has zero credit, but it surely cannot be the push he needs to get re-elected in 2012.

There are people responsible for the intelligence information who, in some cases, risked their lives to get that intel. There were people who flew the helicopters in skies that would turn unfriendly if their presence was detected. There were Navy SEALs on the ground in one-on-one situations with their lives at risk--men who put it all 'on the line' to take out the world's number one Islamist.  But we have a president who, as Senator, voted against then president Bush, to declare Al Qaeda a civil problem rather than a military one. If Bush had been defeated on that issue, Osama would still be out there using Allah as an excuse to kill innocent men, women, children, and babies.  But to give Obama (rhymes with Osama) another term as president, a guy who says that we are not at war with Islam, who says it's a religion of peace, is a travesty. 

I am glad Obama went forward with this mission. I am glad he said it wasn't a Democratic or Republican operation--it wasn't--but his use of first person in describing the details of what went down to take this disgusting murderer down, was typical of him. For the leftist pacifists who cheered the mission and the way intel was gathered, well, that's just typical of your hypocritical ways, my liberal Kumbayah friends.