Obama’s Lucky Shots
Exclusively in political terms, the impeccably orchestrated conclusion to the Somalia pirate standoff yesterday will go down as the national security equivalent of candidate Obama’s nothing-but-net three-point jumper in Kuwait (video here).
Had rescue had gone awry, you can be sure that even the hawks who had been clamoring for a military resolution to the standoff would have turned the episode into evidence of Obama’s unsteadiness as commander in chief. It would have surely picked up some colorful epithet like the “Easter Day massacre” and could have been a real chink in the new president’s armor — just as if bricking 5 or 6 three pointers in a row at that military photo op it would have made for a golden attack ad for a McCain camp seeking to play up their opponent’s inflated sense of self worth.
But there’s something charmed about Obama’s luck — and it comes from the politician’s determination to make his own. You can see it in his steadiness in sizing up his shot on the basketball court; and in the calm confidence he displayed deploying the SEALs to the Somali coast and authorizing the Navy snipers to pull the trigger.
It’s just the latest bit of evidence debunking the right-wing meme that Obama is the second coming of a president who could barely defend himself from killer bunny rabbits.
Expect to see sales of this t-shirt plummet in the future: