Jonah, this post is for posterity. In a 2012 campaign ad, he was the “decider-in-chief” who made the gutsy call to kill bin Laden:
In 2015, here’s what “full responsibility” for a drone strike looks like.
Obama didn’t personally sign off on the two operations, Earnest said, adding that the U.S. would compensate the families of Weinstein and Lo Porto.
And, just to be sure no one misses the message:
The CIA took the strike that killed the hostages under the broad authorities given to the agency to target suspected al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, senior Obama administration officials said. Mr. Obama didn’t directly sign off on the strike beforehand, they said.
Nothing motivates the troops more than a leader who takes the credit for success and deflects blame for failure.