Do most Republicans really think Bush deserves more credit for killing Bin Laden?

[Gonad the Barbarian]

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_new...e-point-bounce-for-obama-after-bin-laden-news

Less than 48 hours after President Barack Obama announced the death of the man who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, one new poll shows the president’s approval rating has jumped up by nine points, with Americans’ opinions of his handling of terrorism reaching the highest point during Obama’s presidency.

The overnight poll, conducted by The Washington Post and the Pew Research Center, found that 56 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s performance as president, up nine points from similar polls last month. That boost includes a substantial bump of 10 points among independents.

The poll, conducted Monday night, offers a first glimpse of the coveted “bounce” that the president could benefit from in the wake of the successful covert operation to hunt down Osama bin Laden, although subsequent multi-evening polls are likely to give a fuller picture of the nation’s reaction to the news.

In the Post-Pew poll, 69 percent of respondents said that they approve of Obama’s handling of the threat of terrorism, the highest rating since he became president in 2009. And more than three-quarters of Americans believe that Obama deserves credit for bin Laden’s death, with 35 percent saying he should get “a great deal” of credit for the terrorist leader’s killing.

(That number falls substantially among GOP respondents. While about six-in-ten self-identified Republicans say the president deserves “some” recognition for the successful operation in Abbottabad, just 17 percent say he is worthy of “a great deal” of credit. Over 80 percent of Republicans say that laurel should go to former President George W. Bush.)

I'll put something here to keep this from being locked for lack of comment, but if I put real comments it would likely earn me a vacation. What is it going to take with you guys? If setting the priorities and making the calls that take down the number one terrorist in the world doesn't earn proper cred with you folks you really need to take a good, hard look at yourselves and own up to just why that is.

 

[waggy]

Fuck no. Niether BUSH or OBAMA deserve credit for it. though if you want to give them any it would be 50-50 why? bush started the mess going after Osama and Obama finished it by giving the OK to the team to kill his ass.

but to be honest giving either any credit for it is fucking silly.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Perhaps if anyone needs to take a hard look at themselves...it's you with your pea-brained "us" vs "you guys" mentality.

 

[waggy]

Perhaps if anyone need to take a hard look at themselves...it's you with your pea-brained "us" vs "you guys" mentality.

oh and this.

i always wonder how the US would be if people actually worked together and not just to get a "win" against the other team.

 

[khon]

Fuck no. Niether BUSH or OBAMA deserve credit for it. though if you want to give them any it would be 50-50 why? bush started the mess going after Osama and Obama finished it by giving the OK to the team to kill his ass.

but to be honest giving either any credit for it is fucking silly.

Bush failed, and Obama succeeded.

How exactly is that 50-50 ?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

A 63 point spread among Republicans putting Bush over Obama in this and I'm the one with an us-vs-them mentality.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

A 63 point spread among Republicans putting Bush over Obama in this and I'm the one with an us-vs-them mentality.

Yes.

 

[waggy]

Bush failed, and Obama succeeded.

How exactly is that 50-50 ?

i think in your blind desire to see the dems win you are missing the point.

NEITHER have a damn thing to really do wit hit besides OK it. its not like Obama or Bush were out looking for him. They just Ok'd the teams to do what they were going to do with the intel they had.

 

[Atreus21]

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_new...e-point-bounce-for-obama-after-bin-laden-news



I'll put something here to keep this from being locked for lack of comment, but if I put real comments it would likely earn me a vacation. What is it going to take with you guys? If setting the priorities and making the calls that take down the number one terrorist in the world doesn't earn proper cred with you folks you really need to take a good, hard look at yourselves and own up to just why that is.

Welcome to politics.

I am a republican. I believe Obama deserves all the credit. If Bush had still been president, I'd have given him full credit for it.

My only misgivings are that the intel required to find the guy, as I understand it, was acquired by waterboarding, which the left abhors. So I find it a little convenient that the left so readily (and partisan-ly) lionizes Obama for an act which could not have taken place but for a procedure they despise (and for which they excoriated the Bush administration). If Bin Laden had been killed under Bush, I doubt they would've been so euphoric.

Alas, it's all politics. It's about what team you're on, not what you've done.

 

[Matt1970]

What's truly astonishing is how we got him based on 9 month old info and how our master plan took that long to implement. If we knew he was there in August, taking action even a moth later is waiting too long.

 

[khon]

i think in your blind desire to see the dems win you are missing the point.

NEITHER have a damn thing to really do wit hit besides OK it. its not like Obama or Bush were out looking for him. They just Ok'd the teams to do what they were going to do with the intel they had.

The president does a lot more than just give the final go ahead. They also set the overall strategy, which leads to the individual missions.

Bush and Obama have very different overall strategies. Bush went with the conventional option, large forces on the ground. Obama has changed that to a strategy based on targetted drone strikes and special ops.

Furthermore the President sets the priorities, and Bush made it very clear on several occasions that he wasn't really looking for Osama that hard, while Obama made it a campaign promise that he would go get the bastard, even if that meant going into Pakistan.

 

[jackschmittusa]

It's my understanding that waterboarding had nothing to do with it.

 

[Atreus21]

Furthermore the President sets the priorities, and Bush made it very clear on several occasions that he wasn't really looking for Osama that hard, while Obama made it a campaign promise that he would go get the bastard, even if that meant going into Pakistan.

I would say either strategy has its merits.

Bush, I think, recognized that one man is insignificant to the entire objective of the war on terror.

Obama recognized that Americans would see his death as justice, and the event would help bring the 911 saga to a close.

Frankly, I don't disagree with either.

 

[Atreus21]

It's my understanding that waterboarding had nothing to do with it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-waterboarding-yielded-vital-information.html

Leon Panetta and the CIA disagree.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

A 63 point spread among Republicans putting Bush over Obama in this and I'm the one with an us-vs-them mentality.

The right is giving Bush too much credit while the left is giving Obama too much credit. The real credit goes to our intelligence and military for finding him and executing the plan flawlessly.

It seems the left wants to dismiss Bush's role completely, but the fact of the matter is, early reports say that the key pieces of intelligence which broke this search wide open were due to measures put into place by Bush. On the other hand, the right wants to act like Obama did nothing but take credit for Bush's work. That isn't true either. Obama significantly escalated activities in Pakistan which, IMO, was the right thing to do.

I still maintain that if Bush wouldn't have gotten us involved in that idiotic war in Iraq, we would've gotten OBL long ago and that is even ignoring the major screw up at Tora Bora.

 

[Scotteq]

The right is giving Bush too much credit while the left is giving Obama too much credit. The real credit goes to our intelligence and military for finding him and executing the plan flawlessly.

It seems the left wants to dismiss Bush's role completely, but the fact of the matter is, early reports say that the key pieces of intelligence which broke this search wide open were due to measures put into place by Bush. On the other hand, the right wants to act like Obama did nothing but take credit for Bush's work. That isn't true either. Obama significantly escalated activities in Pakistan which, IMO, was the right thing to do.

I still maintain that if Bush wouldn't have gotten us involved in that idiotic war in Iraq, we would've gotten OBL long ago and that is even ignoring the major screw up at Tora Bora.

Quoted for Emphasis.


The fact of the matter is that - although GWB didn't catch UBL - GWB absolutely did put the programs in place which President Obama inherited and used to ultimate success. Neither deserve full credit. Neither deserve vilification.

 

[boomerang]

Interesting article here. The credit may need to be directed to Panetta.

http://socyberty.com/issues/white-h...panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

But to reply to the original question, OBL was terminated under the watch of the Obama administration. They did their job - nothing more and nothing less. No gold star on the forehead needed or required.

 

[Thump553]

Bush-not the military-screwed up big at Tora Bora with the wrong decision. Bush then took his eye off the ball (despite PJ's spin) with his famous statements about not being concerned about where OBL was and by essentially abandoning the effort in Afghanistan and starting an absolutely unnecessary, expensive and diversionary war in Iraq rather than doing the heavy lifting to finish the job already started.

It is also looking pretty clear now that none of the necessary intelligence came from GWB's torture program but rather from the professional CIA traditional methods, dogged persistence, hard work and a few lucky breaks.

The outcome achieved shows the difference between a thinking leader and a cowboy who decided by the seat of his pants or to outdo Daddy.

The real credit goes to untold thousands of military and CIA personnel, but under GWB any success would have been in spite of his leadership. Obama did an excellent job of real leadership here and made a very gutsy high risk call to order this mission forward with troops instead of bombs.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I've been reading forums that tend to go right and I have the sense that they grudgingly give Obama the credit and they absolutely hate him. While I can't know for sure I suspect that if they were to participate in a poll they just might say otherwise to skew things in their favor. I think they'd lie about it, but understand whatever credit is due a President goes to Obama.

 

[rudder]

It's my understanding that waterboarding had nothing to do with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVuDO-3zzHU


"enhanced interrogation techniques" played a role. Check the interview with the director of the C.I.A.... start about 8:06. Around 9:13 is your answer.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Interesting article here. The credit may need to be directed to Panetta.

http://socyberty.com/issues/white-h...panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

But to reply to the original question, OBL was terminated under the watch of the Obama administration. They did their job - nothing more and nothing less. No gold star on the forehead needed or required.

Ummmm... yeah stopped reading and dismissed any credibility and objectivity in that report after reading

President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Quoted for Emphasis.


The fact of the matter is that - although GWB didn't catch UBL - GWB absolutely did put the programs in place which President Obama inherited and used to ultimate success. Neither deserve full credit. Neither deserve vilification.

So if this mission had failed, or the go ahead was never given, or the intel had never become actionable, both Bush and Obama would have been equally responsible for that? No? That's why the arguments that Bush deserves even as much, let alone more, credit than Obama in this just flat don't fly. Obama owns this every bit as much as he would have owned a failure to take down OBL.

 

[FerrelGeek]

Bush failed, and Obama succeeded.

How exactly is that 50-50 ?

There is no facepalm sufficient enough to describe your fail.

 

[FerrelGeek]

oh and this.

i always wonder how the US would be if people actually worked together and not just to get a "win" against the other team.

This

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Interesting article here. The credit may need to be directed to Panetta.

http://socyberty.com/issues/white-h...panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

But to reply to the original question, OBL was terminated under the watch of the Obama administration. They did their job - nothing more and nothing less. No gold star on the forehead needed or required.

Wow...if that account is factual, Obama is politically screwed...and I have a deepening respect for Hillary.