Return of the Swift Boat

By JULIET LAPIDOS

August 16, 2012, 1:20 PM201 Comments

In March, Karl Rove wrote an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal in which he belittled the president’s decision to order the raid on Osama bin Laden. “Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation,” Mr. Rove argued. “For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.”

It seemed, at the time, like a sign of things to come: unwilling to praise a Democratic president, especially for an accomplishment that eluded the previous Republican administration, the G.O.P. would tarnish his success. Since they couldn’t claim the death of Osama bin Laden was a bad thing, they would shrug off the raid as something any president could have managed. And they would classify any reference to the raid as undignified bragging — not unlike landing on an aircraft carrier and announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq under a Mission Accomplished banner.

Picking up where Mr. Rove left off, a new group with ties to the G.O.P and the Tea Party called Special Operations Opsec Education Fund has released a 22-minute video rebuking the president for “politically capitalizing” on national security operations, like the raid that killed Bin Laden.

Anyone who watched the late-night address in which Mr. Obama announced Bin Laden’s death will remember that he praised the “tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals” and the “years of painstaking work by our intelligence community.” The Opsec video includes a clip of that address, but omits the “heroic work” and “painstaking work” lines so that it seems as though Mr. Obama gave himself undue credit. Cue Dave Lamorte, a retired C.I.A. officer, who says: “The administration didn’t capture, or kill or eliminate bin Laden or anybody else. There’s a whole lot of folks in the intelligence and the military community who have been working on this for a very long time.” Then Ben Smith, a former Navy SEAL, chimes in with his best Don LaFontaine impression: “Mr. President, you did not kill Osama bin Laden. America did.”

It’s a dishonest hatchet job that’ll make you long for a shower, especially since the “stars” of the video present themselves as concerned citizens with no partisan motivations. “We have become a political weapon. We are not. Our job is to be silent professionals. We do not seek recognition; we do not seek popularity,” says Mr. Smith, evidently unaware that appearing in a long attack ad doesn’t gel with his claims.