Victories and defeats

The whole "Gutsy Call" narrative depends on the calculus of risk. In going after Bin Laden, the SEALs were risking their lives, but what was Obama risking? An ordinary leader would at least be expected to suffer political fallout from a failure. But does anyone really believe that a media, which failed to hold Obama accountable for his defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Islamic disaster in Egypt and Libya, not to mention an economic crater, would have held him accountable if the operation had failed?

Even in the worst case scenario, had the SEALs been captured and paraded on Pakistani television, the blame for the operation would have gone to some military figures, while Obama would have given another speech, conducted more backdoor appeasement and would have been praised for his leadership in a difficult time. This operation, like everything Obama has done, was strictly no risk. There are no "Gutsy Calls" when you never take responsibility for anything. When the buck never stops with you. To be "gutsy" you have to be playing without a net. And the media is Obama's net. Had the operation gone wrong, we would never have seen that situation room photo. Obama would have pretended to have had little knowledge of the operation until it was too late to prevent it from going forward. The whole thing might have even been blamed on some eager beavers who went rogue in their eagerness to get Bin Laden. In time, the story might have unraveled, and there would have been tips and conspiracy theories, but you would likely never have have heard about it from the media.

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The media bubble creates Obama's reality. The same operation under Bush would have been tagged with names like "unilateral" and "dangerously irresponsible" with a strong suggestion that the president had taken us to the brink of nuclear war because of his bloodlust and to improve his political standing. Under Obama, it's proof that he's a superhuman strongman who singlehandedly took down Bin Laden, doing what no one else would have done in his place. It's easy enough to compare the narratives. Remember how much media furor there was about a proposed invasion of Iraq? How much skepticism, criticism and sheer coverage the whole thing got? Now compare that to our proposed invasion of Syria. Oh right, we're on track for that, but don't expect the media to tell you about it, or to challenge the "Friends of Syria" name for the coalition, far more risible than "Coalition of the Willing", which despite its ridicule and awkwardness was at least true. (For bonus points imagine if Bush had dubbed it "Friends of Iraq") That blast in Kabul was not the first or the last. We're losing the war. We're trying to cut a deal with anyone in the Taliban willing to deal with us. And most of them aren't. But you wouldn't know all that from the splashy media coverage of the "Mission Accomplished" tour. Targeting individual terrorist leaders is the only thing that this administration has successfully done. But as victories go, it's akin to assassinating Hitler and Rommel while losing Africa and Europe. It's a victory of sorts, but only if you overlook the sheer scope of defeats that occurred as a direct result of administration policy. We got Bin Laden and lost Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Tunisia and probably Yemen. A few more victories like these and we won't be facing one man's terrorist army, but an entity on the scale of the Soviet Union with the oil resources of OPEC. They call it the Caliphate. Obama calls it Mission Accomplished.