I use the 5 days phrase sarcastically due to the perennial curmudgeons here that wouldn’t have been happy with any rescue not achieved before they could write about it!

The fact appears to be that Obama said “yes” on Friday and “yes” again on Saturday and kept out of it after that, other than monitoring the situation. His order of “fire only if the Captain’s life is in imminent danger” passes the sound bite test (after all, when is a hostage’s life NOT in imminent danger?), and it would have protected him in the event of a disaster.

Given all that, he made the right decisions, and he made them at the right time–EARLY. But the real heroes are indeed the men in the water, and he’d do well to try to keep himself out of their limelight, if it appears. And keep Joe Biden’s tongue on a VERY short leash.

Contrary to some opinions, I think this might become very good for Obama, and he might deserve it, even though his contribution amounted to just staying out of the way and letting the experts do their jobs. Kennedy learned from his visit with Kruschev; Obama can learn from this. I despise the man, but in terms of foreign military affairs, we have to give him credit if he does well at all. That makes later criticism more credible.

Stay with me… It gets better, I promise.

I am totally grateful for the US Navy, and the spared life of the kidnapped Captain.

I think about the mercy of the Lord, and how Jesus shed his blood for everyone. Putting emotion aside, because I’m trained to think, not feel like libs do, The Lord’s mercy was even shown to the Pirates. They had 3 days to turn themselves in. (3 days… the Irony) They had a chance to say “OK. We give up.” Their lives could have been spared. They know this now, as they are burning in Hell, surely wishing they could go back and do things different.

They chose to live “by the sword.” They died “by the sword.” As a Christian, I wish their lives could have been different. But as we are all given free will, they made their choice, and have reaped what they sowed.

Sad. Young men wasting their lives for nothing. Their blood is on their own heads.

And then inside picutes of him in a robe walking on the water giving the captian to the sailors on the destroyer. Wow what a President.

I was in an Army division HQ during DESERT STORM and in the Pentagon during crises that can’t be named. What struck me the most was how little you actually knew in the first few hours after something happened. The first stories you hear are often wrong, incomplete, skewed or all of the above.

I hope we don’t say something now that we’ll regret in a few days.

Rest assured, any screwups we make on this count will run 24/7 on CNN for the next week.

As we get ready for the Tea Party, I’m struck by how many people are turned off by the Republican brand. We need to turn them back on before the 2010 elections (2009 in VA and NJ). We have to avoid PR mistakes.

Now, if Obama DID screw something up, by all means let’s talk about it. But, from now on, if we’re going to take a shot, we need to know we’ve got a real good chance of hitting the target.

But Obama did us proud in this incident. admit it

Now, the bigger test is whether he will do what Bush should have done a year ago

destroy the Somalian harbors on the sea

In my view the US military is a very sharp instrument right now, three months of his Obamaness has had little to any effect on the sharpness of our military and it’s leaders. The lessons of Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world have seen to that.

I also don’t share your cynicism quite yet about the uniformed services “going native”. But keep an eye out for sudden decisions for any of these folks to retire, that would be the same thing that happened under Slick Willy in the early part of his terms in office.

I, too, have been in lots of meetings where I presented what I was “able” to do, and my political masters told me what I would be “allowed” to do.

Your concluding sentence is insightful, and I think that is what the military and people like us sense about Obama. Thus, we cannot believe him or believe in him. There is “something” that just doesn’t ring true.

Not to give his Obamness any credit, a ROE formulated by the JCS and staff, endorsed by SECDEF and approved by His Obamaness.

There are professionals in that funny looking building and they know all about conducting operations, a Chicago pol knows bupkis.