Will the Libya Crisis Help Obama or Romney?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The main effect is it took Romney off message for several days, and he can't afford that right now.  Now if the violent protests continue to fester for several weeks, then maybe it'll hurt Obama some, but that seems unlikely.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It wasn't a tough decision, There was more than a 45% chance ( some reports vary), We have had people in Pakistan for decades now, I wouldn't blame a failed military operation on the president if he didn't do anything wrong/unreasonable (some might, but that's kind of irrelevant).    

Bullcrap.  If Operation Eagle Claw had worked, then Jimmy Carter would have been reelected.  The decision to go after Bin Laden was definitely a tough one on many levels, one of which was political.  If Bin Laden hadn't been there, or worse, was there but got away, then Obama would have thrown away any chance of being reelected. Whereas, if it had been decided to not go on the mission, the election right now would be much the same as it is now.  Romney might be marginally closer, but not significantly so.

If nothing else, it is an example of Obama being willing to do what his gut told him was the right thing to do instead of being willing to do what his gut told him was the right thing to do politically, which seems to be Romney's MO.  That's why Obama is winning this election right now.  More people prefer Obama's guts to Romney's.

Obama took the attacks seriously. Romney didn't. Which one would be better on foreign policy is obvious.

Seriously?!?!?  HE THINKS THE ATTACKS ARE BECAUSE OF A YOUTUBE VIDEO!  HE DOESN'T THINK HE DID ANYTHING WRONG in 'backing' the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and Libya. Romney is right on both those points and Obama is insanely wrong.  So, yeah Romney would clear a pretty low bar as far as being better on foreign policy. 

No, the protests were because of the video as used by those who wanted to stoke a confrontation for their own aims.  The attack on our consulate in Bengazi was a terrorist operation that took advantage of the protest there as cover.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It wasn't a tough decision, There was more than a 45% chance ( some reports vary), We have had people in Pakistan for decades now, I wouldn't blame a failed military operation on the president if he didn't do anything wrong/unreasonable (some might, but that's kind of irrelevant).    

Bullcrap.  If Operation Eagle Claw had worked, then Jimmy Carter would have been reelected.  The decision to go after Bin Laden was definitely a tough one on many levels, one of which was political.  If Bin Laden hadn't been there, or worse, was there but got away, then Obama would have thrown away any chance of being reelected. Whereas, if it had been decided to not go on the mission, the election right now would be much the same as it is now.  Romney might be marginally closer, but not significantly so.

If nothing else, it is an example of Obama being willing to do what his gut told him was the right thing to do instead of being willing to do what his gut told him was the right thing to do politically, which seems to be Romney's MO.  That's why Obama is winning this election right now.  More people prefer Obama's guts to Romney's.

I disagree that it would be a huge political liability.  I mean, look at Bill Clinton's popularity and he missed/messed up getting Bin Laden at least 2 or 3 times.  Bush/US military 'could' have got Bin Laden at Torra Borra supposedly and he was reelected.  The fact that you lead with "taking a minor political risk in order to authorize a necessary military operation" as some major accomplishment basically confirms my point(s).    

Until 9/11 Bin Laden was just a minor nuisance as far most people were concerned, so Clinton's failure there was of course not going to have much effect politically.

You think sending an armed force into Pakistan and having it not only not get Bin Laden, but also take casualties in the process wouldn't have been a major political and diplomatic liability?  Your assessment of the risk assumes that everything will go right, much as Cheney and Rumsfeld did with Iraq and Afghanistan. If things had gone wrong, as they well could have, not only would Obama have had no chance of being reelected, he would have had problems getting renominated.  It also would have seriously hurt the reputation of the US as a whole and the US military in particular. It was not a minor political risk and frankly whether it was a necessary military operation is debatable as well.  To the degree it was necessary it was purely because of the symbolism involved and nothing to do with the actual military operations in Afghanistan.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It wasn't a tough decision, There was more than a 45% chance ( some reports vary), We have had people in Pakistan for decades now, I wouldn't blame a failed military operation on the president if he didn't do anything wrong/unreasonable (some might, but that's kind of irrelevant).    

Bullcrap.  If Operation Eagle Claw had worked, then Jimmy Carter would have been reelected.  The decision to go after Bin Laden was definitely a tough one on many levels, one of which was political.  If Bin Laden hadn't been there, or worse, was there but got away, then Obama would have thrown away any chance of being reelected.

Rubbish. We probably never would have heard about it, and even if we did May 2011 - November 2012 is an eternity in politics.

Possibly if Obama had decided not to go it would have never been heard about, but if Obama gave the go ahead and the mission went wrong, it most certainly would have been heard about it, and we'd have a least a few Republican yahoos talking about impeaching the President for invading Pakistan in a failed mission that cost US lives.  Plus the diplomatic fallout could easily have been far worse.  Suppose instead of Bin Laden, the compound held the family of a retired Pakistani general who had an Arab wife or two?

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People are simply buying into the "Romney is a Monster" meme. It has nothing to do with guts or competence. Besides, Romney's competence and guts made him worth hundreds of millions of dollars (not everybody can achieve these results or everybody would); Obama's tongue (and little else save for perhaps the color of his skin, the other reason he defeated Hillary Clinton) got him elected president.

Thing is there is precious little evidence that business acumen is correlated with making good government policy decisions.

Andrew Johnson was a very successful tailor before entering politics, but he hardy was a good president.

Hoover was without a doubt the president who had the most extensive business experience and yet proved a disaster.

Truman was an utter failure at business, but a reasonably competent president.

George W. Bush did reasonably well in the oil business, and was an average president.

George H.W. Bush did okay in oil and baseball businesses, but was hardly a stellar businessman.  Overall, he ended up a lower than average president.  Both Bushes got significant support in their business careers from the political careers of their fathers. (Significantly more than Mitt got from his father.)

Now maybe Mitt would prove to be the exception to the general rule, but so far good businessmen have generally been worse than average as president.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Ernest, I think that by the same token, you can look at past administrative experience.

J.J., all Presidents have had some previous administrative experience prior to being in office.  Granted, Obama's is among the lightest of any of them (president of the Harvard Law Review for a year), but you can find examples of both incompetence and competence among both presidents with minimal and maximal levels of prior administrative experience.  However, Romney's particular claim is that it is his business experience in particular, not his administrative experience in general makes him better suited to be our president, and based on the record so far, that hasn't been the case historically.  Admittedly, it's a very small subsample.  Certainly too small to make the case that business experience is a detriment to being a good president, but we'd need multiple businesspeople be good presidents without any bad presidents before the same even begins to look like it would be a wash.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Romney is to competence what Obama is to rhetoric. This will be abundantly clear after we win the debates and blanket the airwaves in October.

Does not compute.  If Romney is to competence what Obama is to rhetoric and Romney will win the debates, then logically you are saying Obama is more competent than Romney.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To clarify, Obama is a great speaker, but even the best debater in the world could not adequately defend this abysmal record. It's going to be a laugh riot seeing Romney tear it all apart, replicating what he did to Gingrich right before Florida, leaving an insulated and out-of-touch Obama (and mainstream media) totally flabbergasted.

Romney is a man on a mission. He is the political version of Rambo, and nothing can or will stop him from becoming the 45th President of the United States of America. For those who cannot read between the lines: the expectations game is being played brilliantly in preparation for the debates.

Gingrich did poorly in the Florida debate not because of Romney's brilliance but because the ground rules of that debate was a terrible match for Gingrich's confrontational style.  It also helped that Romney was able to overwhelm the other candidates in Florida with ads.

Other than domestic policy will be the subject of the crucial first debate, I don't see the ground rules as being advantageous to Romney.  Romney will not be able to overwhelm the spending to anywhere near the level he did in the primaries and there are precious few persuadable voters in any of the swing states by now.  Romney has let himself be defined and it looks like he will be paying dearly for it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It wasn't a tough decision, There was more than a 45% chance ( some reports vary), We have had people in Pakistan for decades now, I wouldn't blame a failed military operation on the president if he didn't do anything wrong/unreasonable (some might, but that's kind of irrelevant).    

Bullcrap.  If Operation Eagle Claw had worked, then Jimmy Carter would have been reelected.  The decision to go after Bin Laden was definitely a tough one on many levels, one of which was political.  If Bin Laden hadn't been there, or worse, was there but got away, then Obama would have thrown away any chance of being reelected.

Rubbish. We probably never would have heard about it, and even if we did May 2011 - November 2012 is an eternity in politics.

Possibly if Obama had decided not to go it would have never been heard about, but if Obama gave the go ahead and the mission went wrong, it most certainly would have been heard about it, and we'd have a least a few Republican yahoos talking about impeaching the President for invading Pakistan in a failed mission that cost US lives.  Plus the diplomatic fallout could easily have been far worse.  Suppose instead of Bin Laden, the compound held the family of a retired Pakistani general who had an Arab wife or two?

Do you really believe the administration did not have a contingency plan in place to explain away the events had things took a turn for the worse, or had Bin Laden not been there? That's just political spin. I mean, no administration since Carter has been THAT incompetent. Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and David Petreaus are brilliant patriots who never would have allowed this operation to turn into Operation Eagle Claw 2011 regardless of what happened. Obama and Co. were fully aware of this.

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..they also drafted a memo blaming everything on the military commander (can't remember if it was a general or an admiral) if something went wrong.  They had a fall guy in place.   

And of course everyone would just agree with the memo, thereby insulating Obama from all political fallout.   If you're going to be a hack, at least be an intelligent hack.  Do you seriously think anyone in the administration would think a memo pointing out that Obama relied on the judgment of the military would work to deflect the blame for a failure from him?  It sure didn't help Carter with the fallout from the Eagle Claw fiasco.  Carter got castigated for authorizing the abort that the military's own plan said should be called for when the number of working helicopters became too few.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It wasn't a tough decision, There was more than a 45% chance ( some reports vary), We have had people in Pakistan for decades now, I wouldn't blame a failed military operation on the president if he didn't do anything wrong/unreasonable (some might, but that's kind of irrelevant).    

Bullcrap.  If Operation Eagle Claw had worked, then Jimmy Carter would have been reelected.  The decision to go after Bin Laden was definitely a tough one on many levels, one of which was political.  If Bin Laden hadn't been there, or worse, was there but got away, then Obama would have thrown away any chance of being reelected.

Rubbish. We probably never would have heard about it, and even if we did May 2011 - November 2012 is an eternity in politics.

Possibly if Obama had decided not to go it would have never been heard about, but if Obama gave the go ahead and the mission went wrong, it most certainly would have been heard about it, and we'd have a least a few Republican yahoos talking about impeaching the President for invading Pakistan in a failed mission that cost US lives.  Plus the diplomatic fallout could easily have been far worse.  Suppose instead of Bin Laden, the compound held the family of a retired Pakistani general who had an Arab wife or two?

Do you really believe the administration did not have a contingency plan in place to explain away the events had things took a turn for the worse, or had Bin Laden not been there? That's just political spin. I mean, no administration since Carter has been THAT incompetent. Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates and David Petreaus are brilliant patriots who never would have allowed this operation to turn into Operation Eagle Claw 2011 regardless of what happened. Obama and Co. were fully aware of this.

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..they also drafted a memo blaming everything on the military commander (can't remember if it was a general or an admiral) if something went wrong.  They had a fall guy in place.   

And of course everyone would just agree with the memo, thereby insulating Obama from all political fallout.   If you're going to be a hack, at least be an intelligent hack.  Do you seriously think anyone in the administration would think a memo pointing out that Obama relied on the judgment of the military would work to deflect the blame for a failure from him?  It sure didn't help Carter with the fallout from the Eagle Claw fiasco.  Carter got castigated for authorizing the abort that the military's own plan said should be called for when the number of working helicopters became too few.

The hostage situation was a failure to solve a pressing (public) problem.  A covert seal raid nobody knows anything about (or cares about) is a very different situation.  Failing to find and kill someone hiding from you is inherently different than not saving American Citizens who are flaunted on TV.     

Are you lacking in reading comprehension?  If the mission to get Bin Laden went badly as I pointed out it could, it certainly would not have gone unnoticed or remained covert.  Do you truly think if instead of having to leave behind just a dead helicopter, we'd also left behind several dead or captured Seals without getting Bin Laden that it would have had no impact on Obama's political career or on the prestige of the United States?  I could understand if you were arguing that the risks Obama took were not worth the benefits, but to argue that he took no risks at all in authorizing the Bin Laden mission is sheer idiocy.  Real-life military missions are not video games.  If you want to pretend they are, then please do everyone a favor and spend less time on this forum and more time on your Xbox or PlayStation.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I Love how I'm arguing against people who think:

1)that Obama's obviously failed foreign policy (that importantly has been perfectly critiqued and criticized over the entire timeline of events) is no big deal.

2) BO's administration's naive/lying/incompetent response to the middle east going up in flames with a worrisome wave of anti-Americanism turned open waves of attacks executed with impunity.  ...is no big deal., e

3) "Some hypothetical problem with a seal raid would be a cataclysmic political setback AND because of taking a POLITICAL risk (small/large/ whatever) we should fawn over this amazing leader who was brilliantly able to say "yea go ahead" on a golf course."              

The reality of # 1 & 2 is worse than your hypothetical #3 and you are pretending the reverse is true. 

When did I ever say we should fawn over Obama?  All I said was that he had the guts to take a risk that he knew could end his career and Romney has not shown any such ability and every indication that he lacks that ability. Guts are a good thing for a President to have, tho far from the only god thing to have.

As to your points 1&2, if you think Romney has some magic bullet to bring peace and sanity to the Middle East, let me clue you into a secret, friend, there is no such thing as magic. (Unless you are a brony.) The real world is a messy place, and the Middle East is an especially messy part of it.  Where Romney has laid out foreign policy differences, they have largely been ill-conceived jingoistic claptrap that was hopefully intended to win the primaries rather than be his actual foreign policy if he does get to be elected.  The various Middle East tumults Obama has had to deal with are not appreciably different from those faced by every President since at least Truman.