April 23, 2009
About That E-mail
It's the end of the semester and I'm, sick, behind on everything and broke, so there has been and will be little in the way of substantive blogging for about a week and a half. However, there is an E-mail that is circulating in the blogosphere and on talk radio that needs dealing with.
Over at Information Dissemination, Galrahn has much to say on this. Read the whole thing.
Greyhawk ( no pinko by any means) weighs in here and notes another E-mail purporting to have the straight dope here. Again read both posts, they are thoughtful and informed.
My above my paygrade take is that criticizing the president for his handling of the pirate situation is stupid, wrong or both.
The President does not seem to have micromanaged this ala' Kennedy or Johnson. This is to be commended. Particularly given his basically statist worldview, it is a welcome development.
Much of the desperate, grasping at straws criticism seems to be aimed at the ROE, but given the nature of the problem (a hostage situation) they seem to have been pretty reasonable: ie negotiate and dont fire unless the hostage is in imminent danger....note that the results of this were 3 dead pirates, 1 captured pirate and a freed healthy hostage so if it is the RESULTS one is quibbling with...then one is an idiot.
As to the means to that end, a pitching enclosed lifeboat does not make for an easy shot and the likelyhood of the pirates simply killing the hostage if the boat was attacked was very real.
Prudence is not a vice (though timidity is).
We need to give presidents some bennefit of the doubt in these matters. The fact that the left was dreadfully unfair in their demonization of Bush, who had far worse hands dealt him than this, does not give us a liscence to lower ourselves to their level. We are at war and our president has some very awful things about to come to a head on his watch....things that have no easy solution. Like Bush, he is going to be presented with a selection of choices...all of which are going to be bad. He needs good faith from the loyal oposition.
Rather than act like the repugnant myrmidons of MSNBC-DNC, and try to spin an unalloyed good into a defeat.I would suggest focussing on genuinely problematic descisions that have very worrisome implications, but then I'm silly that way.
Over at Information Dissemination, Galrahn has much to say on this. Read the whole thing.
Greyhawk ( no pinko by any means) weighs in here and notes another E-mail purporting to have the straight dope here. Again read both posts, they are thoughtful and informed.
My above my paygrade take is that criticizing the president for his handling of the pirate situation is stupid, wrong or both.
The President does not seem to have micromanaged this ala' Kennedy or Johnson. This is to be commended. Particularly given his basically statist worldview, it is a welcome development.
Much of the desperate, grasping at straws criticism seems to be aimed at the ROE, but given the nature of the problem (a hostage situation) they seem to have been pretty reasonable: ie negotiate and dont fire unless the hostage is in imminent danger....note that the results of this were 3 dead pirates, 1 captured pirate and a freed healthy hostage so if it is the RESULTS one is quibbling with...then one is an idiot.
As to the means to that end, a pitching enclosed lifeboat does not make for an easy shot and the likelyhood of the pirates simply killing the hostage if the boat was attacked was very real.
Prudence is not a vice (though timidity is).
We need to give presidents some bennefit of the doubt in these matters. The fact that the left was dreadfully unfair in their demonization of Bush, who had far worse hands dealt him than this, does not give us a liscence to lower ourselves to their level. We are at war and our president has some very awful things about to come to a head on his watch....things that have no easy solution. Like Bush, he is going to be presented with a selection of choices...all of which are going to be bad. He needs good faith from the loyal oposition.
Rather than act like the repugnant myrmidons of MSNBC-DNC, and try to spin an unalloyed good into a defeat.I would suggest focussing on genuinely problematic descisions that have very worrisome implications, but then I'm silly that way.
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