This is Awful

Washington Post: Kabul, AFGHANISTAN - A NATO helicopter was shot down during an overnight operation against the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 U.S. service members, including about 20 SEALs from the elite SEAL Team 6 counterrorism unit that carried out the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, the coalition said.

...A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter said the aircraft was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Oh, you didn't think I was finished, did you?

POSTED BY JHW22

I am quite proud of the Navy Seals who went in and cleanly killed Osama Bin Laden. I am filled with relief and joy that not one of them came out in a body bag. It sounds, for now anyway, that they overcame challenges well and accomplished the mission with minimal problems. Kudos.

They deserve kudos. They deserve to be cheered.

And so does their Commander in Chief.

Their Commander in Chief made the ultimate call to send in a small, focused group of Seals so that we could get Bin Laden with little collateral damage, have a body to identify and even gather better intelligence than any intelligence any interrogator with a bucket of water could ever get.

Kudos, also, to Leon Panetta. As the head of the CIA, tasked by the Commander in Chief with developing a plan to get Bin Laden -- something Bush decided wasn't such a big deal after all -- Panetta delivered. I am seriously looking forward to seeing the changes in the Department of Defense after what we learned about this administration this weekend. As much as I appreciate and respect Secretary Gates, I think he's exhausted and Panetta will step in with a new vision -- one I think Gates would be proud to manage if he had the energy left.

But I digress in my kudos.

What I really came here to say is: as much as the Seals are to be respected, what if each one had FUBARed? What if one fired on a fellow Seal by mistake? What if one slipped and let Bin Laden escape? What if one forgot to load his weapon? If each one made stupid, human error that could not be blamed on anyone but each one of them, only one person would have taken all the blame: Barack Obama.

Yep, the man who many can't seem to bring themselves to thank, would have been their gleeful target of blame.

And that, as one of many reasons, is why they SHOULD suck it up and thank the man for doing what the previous two Presidents couldn't. Obama didn't just get Bin Laden. He got him, he got him fast. He got him clean. He got him without taking 150,000 into the wrong country to do it. Give him your thanks. And then suck it!

Obama's Easter Egg Roll

I just saw President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama participate in their first White House Easter Egg Roll live on MSNBC.

Stand by for wingnut outrage in 5... 4... 3...

*How dare the Messiah waste time on such frivilous things as a 139 year old White House tradition when there are so many things to take care of! If he had kept his eye on the ball instead of playing with eggs, maybe Capt. Richard Phillips wouldn't have been kidnapped by Somali pirates in the first place. Yeah, I know he was rescued in a daring Navy SEAL operation that only took three shots, and yeah, I know that President Obama gave authorization to use deadly force if necessary and yeah, I know Captain Phillips was unharmed... but what took so long?

And now the Somali pirates have vowed to avenge the deaths of their fellow mateys. What now, Mr. Commander in Chief?! You've only aggravated the situation in that dangerous part of the high seas! Nice job.*

Here endeth the snark.

In other stupid news, it looks like Arizona State University is planning to name a scholarship in honor of President Obama after realizing that deciding not to give him an honorary degree was an incredibly asinine decision. After all, Obama hasn't reached the status of other ASU honorary degree recipients like Erma Bombeck, Steve Allen and Jerry Colangelo.