What's Mallard raving about today?
Navy Seals (or Eagles?), President Obama.
Now that's more like it, we're back into total Right Wing lickspittle territory!
The Navy Seals deserve all the credit they have gotten for a mission well done.
But, I'm sorry Mallard, the Seals didn't make the call to go in. And the person who made the call deserves credit for making that call.
The orgy of blame that would have ensued from the Right Wing had the mission failed (or had it been discovered we passed up the chance entirely), demands and equal and opposite apportionment of credit for the opposite result.
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Yeah, Batshit's got all the elements here that make Batshit batshit: the smug smirk; the armchair culture warrior trying to bump fists with men who actually understand patriotism and service to one's country; the flopsweat-stinking desperation to deny Obama any props whatsoever for giving the order to nail the terrorist that Junior Bush and Uncle Dick LET ESCAPE.
Note to Bruce Tinsley: You aren't fit to wipe any of these men's asses. Including Obama's.
It wasn't just giving the order. Obama tasked the CIA from day one to make its main goal the capture or killing of OBL. Don't forget that back in 2006 the unit that was tasked with finding OBL was disbanded by the Bush administration. But let's not let that get in the way of our right-wing smug bullshittery that we have to put up with from these nitwits.
I'm sure that in making Al Qaeda a real priority instead of a PR crutch, and devoting resources to getting and acting on good information, and seeing to the permanent removal of a still-active threat, that Obama was just wagging the dog to distract attention from the serious issue of that birth certificate PDF. If only we, as a nation, would keep our eyes on the real issues, we could probably find some kind of kerning that would totally prove something so awful we can't even speculate on what it might be at this time.
In other news, I guess we'll have some Rapture gags coming up. Tin didn't hand them in ahead of time because he wanted to make sure events didn't mess him up again.
The main point I take away from the strip is that compared to (literally) upstanding Avian-Americans like Mr. Seal-Eagle here, the character of Mallard Fillmore is a slouched, cowardly sack of crap who has never done any good for anyone.
OK, so we've finally caught up to the point where the right wing was actually pleased that Bin Laden was dead. So we've got about two days before he starts hitting the talking points about how this was the Worst Thing Ever to Happen Ever and It's All Obama's Fault.
Let me grab a beer and wait. No, Bruce, you can't have the other eleven.
Wow -- in finally directly addressing the killing of bin Laden, not only does Brucie heap praise on the SEALs who carried out the mission (which no sane person would deny they deserve), but he depicts them as all-American bald eagles, as well. If there was not previously such a thing as "aggressively playing it safe", there is now. Way to be a bold, courageous truth-teller, Brucie.
Jon Stewart had an actual navy SEAL (retired) on to talk about the operation, and the guy was very clear about one thing: it was a team effort - the SEALs are the "tip of the spear" but they, themselves, are fully aware that their mission depended on the pilots, support staff, armorers, logistic experts, secretaries, cooks, bottlewashers ... AND president.
Everyone doing their job. No-one smirking. The actual SEAL said so, and he's right.
Y'all might be too young to remember (...or, in the case of Bruce Tinshley, too addled by alcohol to remember ...) but Jimmy Carter took a lot of blame for the failed Iranian hostage rescue .. even though the deaths occurred as a result of an aircraft collision for which he could have no personal responsibility what-so-ever. The rocks go with the farm, and the buck stops on the desk of the President.
There is very little in life that is funnier than physical cowards like Bruws Tinshley kissing up to our armed forces, as if that makes up for betraying them by sending the to fight land wars in Asia and trying to block decent care for them and their families at home. No-one wants a smirking cartoon drawn about them; if you really care about the troops, why not pay them the same money you pay Blackwater?
When the Berlin Wall came down and Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, conservatives were quick to declare that Ronald Reagan was SOLELY responsible. Nary a word about the *citizens* who took to the streets and dragged the Ceaucescus out and killed them themselves.
Why is that eagle wearing an Army uniform with a novelty SEAL hat?
I won't deny a level of schadenfreude to how PISSED the right is that their boy failed after 7 years, and Bambi Hussein McMuslim al Commie got him.
It just burns your ass, doesn't it?
I see Tins has opted for the "Oh, HE didn't DO anything, he just say in the command room, so he doesn't deserve any praise" route, and not the "OBL was irrelevant anyways, so why should any one care?" route. Interesting.
DiR: I don't see any reason he couldn't do both. He's held plenty of ideas more self-contradictory than that.
rewinn, it's a little less surprising that the Iran hostage rescue mission failed when you look at the personnel involved, like Oliver North, who always managed to put politics and personal enrichment above all else.
@Kip W - yes, my understanding is that part of the problem w/the hostage rescue was interservice politicking. The actual crash is probably no-one's fault; this stuff is inherently dangerous. But it has been said to me by people with reason to know that the mixture of forces was not optimized for performance.
And of course it was an insanely ambitious effort - with just a little better weather or a lucky break instead of multiple unlucky breaks, it might've gone down as one of the most daring successes in history. Much of what "we" (speaking corporately not individually) can now do comes from lessons learned.
Of course ... you have to WANNA learn lessons. Much of the screw-up in Iraq/Afghanistan comes from learning the wrong lessons, e.g. there's a lotta money in privatized armed services if you can just keep the public scared enough.
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