On Wednesday night, esteemed journalist Brian Williams, who hosts his own weekly prime time program called “Rock Center” on NBC, spent this weeks show interviewing President Obama, along with most of his national security cabinet, about the days and hours leading up to the attempted capture and eventual killing of Osama bin Laden. Seeing as how just the day before marked exactly one year since the world’s #1 terrorist was killed, it was very fitting to have this special interview regarding such a huge moment in the country’s history.
But, don’t worry… NewsBusters was right there (on cue) to rain on everybody’s parade and nitpick at something. In a May 3 posting, Kyle Drennen complained about how much fawn and praise was given to the President for running the mission so successfully. He even picked out some light hearted questions that were asked of the President and some cabinet members. Not only did Drennen have an issue with the questioning, seemingly pushing for more criticism of the President (ignoring how well the mission went), but he accused Williams of somehow attacking our military for pointing out past mistakes regarding specific events that occurred (emphasis mine):
The closest Williams came to a challenging question about failures in Obama’s broader foreign policy laid blame on the military, not on the President: “You got him [Bin Laden], but what did it get you? What did it get us? Are we demonstrably safer? We’ve had setbacks vis a vis our military, with desecration, with the burning of the Koran, unforced errors what’s the net effect and result now that you have a year’s clarity behind you?”
Contrary to how Drennen chooses to frame the question, Williams didn’t go after the entire military, he pointed out some of the isolated incidents and mistakes committed by specific bad apples that put our country’s national security further in danger, and made our military (and the country, as a whole) look bad. Plus, why would he blame these incidents on Obama? It’s the members of the military who committed the acts. Obama chastised the unconscionable acts, and the correct action was taken against the perpetrators.
Do you think Drennen would have wanted Williams to find a way to blame George Bush for all of his disastrous foreign policy decisions during his time as President? Of course not, because that wouldn’t be following the correct talking points issued by Brent Bozell and his propaganda peddlers. Only RNC talking points and strategies are allowed there.
By the way, going back to the last quote Drennen cited: where are these “failures in Obama’s broader foreign policy“? I’m not a big fan of the President’s overall foreign policy choices, but I’m pretty sure any military expert or analyst, who doesn’t have a clear bias, would grade his foreign policy record as high as any President in recent history.
Granted, the mission in Afghanistan has angered many Progressives like myself, but when you look at it in a conservative standpoint, people on the right should be enthralled with Obama’s record (as far as the policies he has kept from George Bush). Not only because he killed the world’s biggest terrorist, something conservatives would have loved to do under Bush, but his overall consistency in drone attacks, indefinite detentions, etc., are all policies that are continuing from the Bush administration.
But, as we stated before, and as we all already know, they have to blame him for something… anything they can find or dig up that will pit the blame somewhere else and get the socialist, communist, Marxist, Muslim-sympathizer out of office. That’s all they want, and they won’t rest until they get it.
