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Ross Douthat: For those with eyes to see, the daylight between the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama has been shrinking ever since the current president took the oath of office.
Michael Barone: For years, we heard supposedly enlightened people excoriate our leaders for torture, lawlessness, unilateralism — the list goes on and on. Now the president they wanted has used the tactics and methods they excoriated to get bin Laden. Good for him.
Victor Davis Hanson: The protocols for taking out Osama bin Laden were all established by President Bush and all opposed by Senator and then candidate Obama. Yet President Obama never seeks to explain that disconnect; indeed, he emphasizes it by the overuse of the first person. When the president reminds us this week of what “over the years I’ve repeatedly made clear,” does he include his opposition to what he now has institutionalized?
Paul Miller, Shadow Govt: Perhaps most directly relevant for the road to Abbottabad, Bush made a few key changes to the counterterrorism programs in 2008. Frustrated by years of stalemate, he expanded the authorized target list, began to approve missions without prior Pakistani approval, and also authorized ground incursions into Pakistan to pursue al-Qaida.
Please correct your headline.
Posted by: Ed Nichols | May 09, 2011 at 05:01 PM
Shouldn't the headline read "Osama" instead of Obama, or was it a freudian slip?
Posted by: Derek | May 09, 2011 at 05:03 PM
A terrible mistake! Corrected now. Thank YOU!
Posted by: CHUSA | May 09, 2011 at 06:44 PM