Sunday 3 November 2019

A tale of two presidents: praise and spite

When Osama bin Laden was killed by US special services, praise was heaped on President Obama as the Commander-in-chief. Conservatives included. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, conservatives all, all praised Obama. So did pre-presidential Trump who sent his congratulations, via tweet naturally. All of them said  “Credit where it’s due”.
When Abu Bakr al- BaghdadI was killed by US special services, praise was heaped on President Trump as Commander-in-chief. Progressives included. Oh no! No way did the progressive media and pundits grant that there was some praise where it’s due. The talking point on all the liberal channels was that al-Baghdadi’s demise was “in spite of” president Trump. In spite of. Huh?
In what sense was the successful raid “in spite of” Donald Trump, I wonder? Did the special forces carry out the raid without Trump’s approval? Surely not. Were the special forces hampered in their training, by Trump? Again, surely not. “In spite of” what, exactly? I guess just because Trump is. His very existence is an affront to liberals. Thus, anything good that happens under his watch must be “in spite of” him.
The fact that not a single note of graciousness came from the liberal media shows the level of vitriolic hate they have for Trump. And it speaks badly of them.
After all, neither Obama nor Trump jumped out of a helicopter, M1s at their sides, mowing down the bad guys themselves. What they both did was to approve the raids. Had the raids gone bad it would have been Jimmy Carter over again — his Iran Embassy debacle haunted him to the end of his presidency. So each Of Obama and Trump took a gamble and each had to have guts to do that.
I’m no Trump fan but it’s really dispiriting to see the lack of grace, failure of fairness and want of integrity to give credit where it’s due.
No even Mr Cool, Post-presidential Obama could bring himself to reciprocate Trump’s congratulatory tweet. He did find time though to congratulate the Washington Nationals, winners of the baseball World Series.…