If Obama shouldn't get credit for bin Laden mission, who should? A look at partisan criticism

If the commander-in-chief cannot take credit for a mission he ultimately ordered, then who should?

The new noise on the right is President Obama is unfairly taking credit for killing Osama Bin Laden. This group making the claim wants us to believe they're simply non-partisan citizens concerned about the security breaches of their beloved country.

Anyone who believes that is just as dishonest and disingenuous as those now throwing stones.

Former Navy SEALs calling themselves the Operational Security Group, or OPSEC, are now challenging Obama's handling of the Osama bin Laden raid, accusing him of everything from leaks to incompetence. To further bolster these attacks, they have released a 20-minute video slamming the mission and laying all their perceived wrongs at Obama's feet.

This is an election year, and Republicans are using every weapon in their deep trove of arsenals, and this just may be one of them. OPSEC's spokesman Scott Taylor was challenged by CNN's Soledad O'Brien on just how non-partisan his group really was.

During a Friday interview on her early morning show "Starting Points," O'Brien grilled Taylor on his partisanship, pointing out that he was a Republican who had run for congressional office in Virginia's 2nd District just two years ago. Other members of OPSEC are also Republicans, with one even having worked in the Bush administration. She also pointed out that they currently shared office space with Republicans.

Taylor replied by saying this "was an American issue," adding among other things, "I am an American first. I am an American before I am a Republican."

O'Brien also took him to task for their misleading 20-minute video, which was edited to purposefully look like the president didn't thank the Navy Seals for an outstanding mission accomplished.

Read more on the interview here:

O’Brien lays waste to anti-Obama Navy SEAL’s claim of ‘non-partisanship’ | The Raw Story.

Or watch the video at:( embedded via CNN).

Please, let's get real for a minute.Wasn't he an American when the Bush Administration started the war in Iraq based on lies and financed on credit? A war that has cost a fortune in lives, resources and has plunged the Middle East into more turmoil now than when we arrived?

As commander-in-chief, any president gets to take credit for the good and the blame for the bad on his watch. Isn't that how the GOP sees it? Aren't they blaming Obama for the abysmal economy and dismal unemployment numbers?

Pundits and politicians alike, gunning for the other side, have repeatedly said the president cannot keep blaming George W. Bush for the mess he left. Republicans say it is time to stop playing the blame-game and own it. In fact, they not only say the current administration should own it but they should deal with it and fix it. Fix in four years what it took eight-plus years to derail.

Funny, when something positive is accomplished by this president -- something as monumental as stopping the man they said was the deadliest, most wanted terrorist alive, dead in his Pakistan tracks -- Republicans are now singing a different tune. Suddenly he shouldn't own it, deal with it and take credit for it.

If Bush had managed to round-up bin Laden on his watch, you can bet your last dollar the GOP would have ridden that wave all the way to the last election and then this one. They would have erected a statue on the White House lawn in GW's honor, used the capture as a shining beacon of his leadership and added a notch on his "terrorist clean-up belt." They would have used this as a victorious battle-cry in the war against terrorism. They would have used it like they shamelessly used 9/11.

So if this is not some pathetic, pandering, partisan BS, I don't know what is. Yet Mitt Romney has the gall to say President Obama is "angry" and "desperate." This latest witch-hunt sure smells desperate and deeply hypocritical from my vantage point.

How does it look and smell from yours?

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