What we need in a President

“President Obama proves he has the Right Stuff

EASTON, Md, May 9, 2011 — Like many on the Left, I had grown impatient with President Obama’s cautious approach to governing, but when he ordered the Navy Seals to storm Osama bin Laden’s compound, he replaced circumspection with audacity.

The President showed he had the Right Stuff, knowing the strike could result in a Jimmy Carter moment in the Iranian desert or another Black Hawk down in Somalia. Had the mission gone awry, it could have led not only to the deaths or capture of our Seals, but it would have given America an international black eye.

It also would have shattered Obama’s legacy and most probably undermined his chances for re-election. I don’t even want to think of the hullabaloo had this resulted in a failed mission.

The operation was fraught with danger on many levels from the personal to the political. It took guts for him to order the attack and it took guts for the Seals to carry out the attack.

So who is this Obama who targeted bin Laden, steadily tracking him to his lair over the last two years?

I was reminded by a friend that in 2009, just 100 days into his presidency, Mr. Obama gave the order to Navy Seal snipers to take out the three Somali pirates threatening to kill their hostage, Captain Richard Phillips. He has shown this steely resolve before.

No doubt about it. President Obama has the guts to make the hard calls.  And he had campaigned on getting bin Laden, even if it meant going into Pakistan. So why was I so surprised?

Because:  between April 2009 and May 2011, we didn’t see much of this Barack Obama. He was more of a negotiator and too often, for my taste, a “can’t we all get along” President. He held out innumerable olive branches to the GOP, only to see them cut from his hands by nimble Republicans.”