American fighting men and women aren’t campaign props to be deployed as a rapid-reaction force when the polls start tanking. But even as weeping families bury their dead heroes, White House political hacks are trying to steal their glory for the sake of a few more votes.
President Obama came into office unfamiliar with the culture of the military he found himself commanding — but over time it’s become clear that his appreciation for the troops has grown as they have performed every task he has asked of them. This week, he went to Dover Air Force Base to personally greet the honored dead from SEAL Team 6 and other units killed in last weekend’s helicopter tragedy.
Yet his campaign operatives are another story: They’re set on using the SEALs and other warriors who hunted down bin Laden in a clumsy attempt to gin up support in the closing weeks before next year’s election.
As Maureen Dowd disclosed Saturday, the president’s “aides have made sure there are proxies to exuberantly brag” about SEAL Team 6’s already legendary bin Laden raid. Now, “the White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of Bin Laden to counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual.”
The movie is to open on Oct. 12, 2012 — just weeks before the election. And the filmmakers’ politics are no secret: They made the faux-pro-troop flick “The Hurt Locker; Bigelow is a Democratic donor — and Boal, even more tellingly, wrote for Rolling Stone.
Three guesses as to who will end up the real hero of this flick — and the answer isn’t any of the SEALs who shot their way into Abbottabad. The biggest surprise will be if there’s no scene with Dick Cheney sharing a stogie with the world’s most notorious terrorist while talking about how much they both dig the Tea Party.
Disturbingly, Dowd reports that Bigelow and Boal “are getting top-level access” to information on the classified mission.
The tragic deaths of 30 of America’s finest at the hands of bin Laden’s Taliban partners underscore the fact that our troops must be beyond mere politics. Hollywood should tell their story, but it shouldn’t lessen their sacrifice by intertwining it with a political campaign.
Squelching this project would not be only morally right, but politically smart. Sure, giving the thumbs up to our boys to go in and ventilate bin Laden was the right call — but it was also the only call. No commander-in-chief wants to stand up in front of the White House press corps and explain how he dithered and let “Geronimo” get away.
Anyway, the voters won’t appreciate asking for solutions to the economic meltdown and hearing only “We got bin Laden!” instead.
You can’t listen to President Obama talking about the men and women of America’s military without seeing the sincere concern he has for them. As hardball as Chicago politics are, it’s hard to imagine that he would sanction this scheme. It has all the earmarks of some mid-ranking functionary getting a bright idea and running with it.
A key task for any commander is reining in subordinates who get out of line. Mr. President, tell your political crew that you won’t tolerate our troops’ bravery and sacrifice being exploited just to grab a few votes.
Kurt Schlichter is an Army veteran, lawyer and writer.