Already, some conservatives are attempting to diminish the president’s role in sending Navy Seals across the border into Pakistan. One co-worker of mine said something like, “it was all laid out for him – Daffy Duck could have made the decision…”
That of course is ridiculous on its face; deciding to embark on an operation into third-party foreign soil is among the stickiest decisions a president can face.
But further, perhaps this is a good time to ascertain what a President McCain would have done.
First off, we know that:
Mr. Obama said Pakistan had helped develop the intelligence that led to Bin Laden, but an American official said the Pakistani government was not informed about the strike in advance. “We shared our intelligence on this compound with no other country, including Pakistan,” the official said.
Let’s now go back to the first presidential debate in 2008.
As you’ll recall, Obama said he would act on actionable intelligence, if it meant Bin Laden could be taken out.
McCain of course distorted his position, but also tellingly said:
We've got to get the support of the people of -- of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan.
Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.
Obama then replied with this:
Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan. Here's what I said.
And if John wants to disagree with this, he can let me know, that, if the United States has Al Qaida, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out.
Now, I think that's the right strategy; I think that's the right policy.
Would President McCain have taken yesterday’s actions? It’s hard to say. But when it comes to whose views of the situation actually prevailed in the end, it’s pretty clear that Obama had a much firmer grasp of how it would likely transpire.
Please read the entire transcript for the full context. They also went into it during one of the other debates.