It has been a week and a half since President Obama announced – with great fanfare at a Rose Garden ceremony the swapping of bowe bergdahl for five Guantanamo detainees. This was supposed to be a triumphant event that would deflect attention from the huge, and growing VA hospital scandal.
But since then, we have learned that bowe bergdahl was a lying deserter, that the five detainees swapped for him were specificaly asked for by the taliban because of their senior status and “capabilities” (defined as ability to kill taliban enemies, such as US soldiers) , and that there is a strong likelihood at least 6 loyal soldiers – possibly more – died trying to find bergdahl.
It has also become evident that, while initial public opinion, based largely on President Obama\’s account of the swap and before this information came out about bergdahl, was mixed, even slightly positive. But now that people know more about the specifics of what the President did, polls are rapidly moving downward (approval, initially in the mid 40\’s, has dropped to 37% in the latest CBS News poll and 34% in the latest USA Today/Pew poll.)
So, faced with what has turned into a big fat political stinkbug, what does President Obama do?
He outsources.
Excerpted from John Parkinson and Jake Lefferman\’s piece at ABC News…complete one congressperson\’s immediate skepticism:
Secretaryof Defense Chuck Hagel – not President Obama – executed theadministration\’s final call to proceed with the prisoner exchangeof five ranking Taliban detainees for Sgt.Bowe Bergdahl, administration officials told Congress today in aclassified briefing today.
“Theyindicated [it was] Secretary Hagel [who made the final call],”House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-California, toldreporters following the briefing Monday evening. “It was thepresident of the United States that came out [in the Rose Garden]with the Bergdahls and took all the credit and now that there\’sbeen a little pushback he’\’ moving away from it and it\’sSecretary Hagel?”
Is Rep. McKeon correct? Does he have a point?
In answer, let me reference Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, on Meet The Press just two days ago:
“Isigned off on the decision. The President made the ultimatedecision.”
So now what will Hagel do? Tell us that President Obama didn\’t make the ultimate decision?
The scariest part of this lie-fest – other than five A-list terrorists being free to kill again – is that there are so many people who either will never know that they are being lied to this overtly, or, even worse, will know and will figure out a rationale for it being ok…..with “Well what about Bush” probably being the first four words of that rationale.
Does anyone in this administration ever tell the truth?
Why would anyone ever believe a word they say about anything?
