Drowning Man

I was rather startled to pull up Memeorandum this morning to see that it was apparently Barack Obama, and not Captain Richard Phillips who benefited most from the sharpshooting skills of Navy SEALS off the African coast yesterday.

In the Washington Post, Michael D. Shear gushed in an article headlined An Early Military Victory for Obama:

For President Obama, last week's confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.

But the result -- a dramatic and successful rescue operation by U.S. Special Operations forces -- left Obama with an early victory that could help build confidence in his ability to direct military actions abroad.

Throughout the past four days, White House officials played down Obama's role in the hostage drama. Until yesterday, he made no public statements about the pirates.

In fact, aides said yesterday, Obama had been briefed 17 times since he returned from his trip abroad, including several times from the White House Situation Room. And without giving too many details, senior White House officials made it clear that Obama had provided the authority for the rescue.

"The president's focus was on saving and protecting the life of the captain," one adviser said. Friday evening, after a National Security Council telephone update, Obama granted U.S. forces what aides called "the authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain." On Saturday at 9:20 a.m., Obama went further, giving authority to an "additional set of U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions."

One of President Obama's favored cheerleaders in the Associated Press, Jennifer Loven, teamed up with Phillip Elliott to also sing Obama's praises in an article headlined Obama twice approved force to rescue hostage:

President Barack Obama twice authorized the military to rescue a U.S. captain who was being held by Somali pirates and whose life appeared to be at risk, administration officials said after Sunday's rescue.

The Defense Department twice asked Obama for permission to use military force to rescue Capt. Richard Phillips from a lifeboat off the Somali coast. Obama first gave permission around 8 p.m. Friday, and upgraded it at 9:20 a.m. Saturday. Officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said the second order was to encompass more military personnel and equipment that arrived in the Indian Ocean to engage the pirates.

If is sounds like President Obama is being painted as a heroic leader for his role in this incident by his supporters in the media... well, yes, that's exactly what they are doing.

But as former Green Beret Master Sergeant Jim Hanson noted, Obama's heroic sign-offs were simple and perfunctory:

The standing authority gave them clearance to engage the pirates if the life of the captain was in imminent danger.

In other words, the decision to fire was an understood reactive measure by the on-scene commander to a provocative act taken by the pirates, not a proactive measure taken by the President.

In a crisis where an American citizen's life was on the line, President Obama got out of the way and let the professionals do their jobs. It's a nice change of pace from his Presidency thus far, but not screwing up shouldn't be grounds for exhorting him as if he had just planned and executed Operation Overlord.

So why is the media so eager to puff up the President's role in a matter in which he had no direct role or immediate authority?

It could simply be that the American media is hoping to latch on to a victory—no matter how tangential— for a President mocked overseas for non-scripted weaknesses, continuous gaffes of protocol, and his artless foreign policy naivety.

Barack Obama opted against the political suicide of not allowing the military to use deadly force to save the life of an American threatened by armed pirates. That doesn't make him Nimitz.

Instead, this too-eager response paints him him look like a politician drowning in a sea of incompetence, with his fawning press desperately tosses him anything they can to help him stay afloat.