President Pantywaist and the Pirates

The Left is chortling about what a big, bold he-man Obama is, not actually forbidding the US Navy’s use of armed force to rescue the hostage American ship’s captain.

Jules Crittenden appreciates the irony.

Lefty bloggers are crowing about how tough their guy is because some SEAL snipers whacked three pirates. The lefties seem to mainly be interested in this as an opportunity to snark on the right, claiming that pirate whackage or the lack thereof was set as some kind of definitive right-wing benchmark of Obama’s wieniness. That’s OK. This is their special moment. …

In fact, news reports indicate the dithering has already begun. Never mind that. I just want to say I’m thrilled about the handwringing, Kumbayah-singing, peacenik left’s new enthusiasm for swift, extra-judicial 7.62 justice by executive order, and the lack of calls for human rights investigations, prosecutions, etc.

Special Ops service veteran Jeff Emanuel is less impressed with the Obama administration’s performance.

Almost immediately following word of the rescue, the Obama administration and its supporters claimed victory against pirates in the Indian Ocean and declared that the dramatic end to the standoff put paid to questions of the inexperienced president’s toughness and decisiveness.

Despite the Obama administration’s (and its sycophants’) attempt to spin yesterday’s success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort.

What should have been a standoff lasting only hours — as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location — became an embarrassing four-day-and-counting standoff between a rag-tag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship. …

[I]nstead of taking direct, decisive action against the rag-tag group of gunmen, the Obama administration dilly-dallied, dawdled, and eschewed any decisiveness whatsoever, even in the face of enemy fire, in hopes that the situation would somehow resolve itself without violence. Thus, the administration sent a clear message to all who would threaten U.S. interests abroad that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has no idea how to respond to such situations — and no real willingness to use military force to resolve them.

Any who think they weren’t watching every minute of this are guilty — at best — of greatly underestimating our enemies. …

Like the crew of the Alabama, which took swift and decisive action to take back their own ship rather than wait for help from Washington that they knew could not be counted on, Captain Phillips took matters into his own hands for the second time in three days, leaping into the water to create a diversion and allowing the NSWC team to eliminate his captors. The result, of course, was the best that could possibly be expected: three pirates dead, the captain unharmed, and a fourth Somali man who had surrendered late Saturday night in custody.

One thing that will bear watching will be what the Obama DOJ attempts to do with the captive pirate. My money is on a life of welfare checks, a plot of land (in a red state, naturally), and voting rights in Chicago, New York, and Seattle.