Geez, now you want to script the debate and you still end up with "common sense" as a response? That's funny! Yes, I shall start calling you "SF", but you must become far wittier.
OK, here is why you are wrong. You did not actually link to the NY Times article, you linked to a blogsite that referenced the New York Times article. The actual article does not say that the President personally selects targets, it says that he approves them after recommendations by his national intelligence and counterinsurgency experts. This is nothing new. Presidents always have to approve covert operations.
Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for adronestrike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.
“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”
This is a story about an executive taking charge and taking responsibility for the covert actions targeting our main enemy--Al Qaeda. Your objections might make some sense if he were blundering, but in fact, Obama's decisions to hit Al Qaeda hard and frequently has decimated their leadership. The entire article, in context, makes it clear that Obama receives recommendations from the military, the intelligence, foreign policy experts and even from Pakistan. He approves the ones that are in the best interests of the nation and he's done pretty damned good.
There is no merit in GOP suggestions that Obama's responsibilties involving covert operations is improper and it is falling on deaf ears since those operations have been spectacularly successful. In fact, it just reminds voters just how good a job Obama has done regarding foreign policy and military action.
