As you may have heard, Arianna is pretty mad that Obama questioned whether Romney would have attacked Bin Laden calling his ad the "one of the most despicable things you can do". First of all, let’s ignore all the politics that the Republicans have been playing on this issue for the past decade. Let's ignore the fact that Obama told the truth and Mitt Romney indeed dismissed the idea of going after bin laden "as moving heaven and earth just to catch one person".
Let's ignore the fact that the previous President did not achieve this important non-political feat, and instead used Bin Laden as a political ploy to attack a Muslim country and paint Democrats as weak if they didn't support him. Let’s ignore the fact that when this exact decision was brought to Bush’s table, he made the wrong decision and Bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora. Let's ignore the fact that when candidate Obama first brought up this exact non-political scenario, then-Presidential candidate John McCain played politics, attacking him as “confused” “inexperienced” and “naïve”. Let's ignore the fact that Romney agreed with McCain, and refused to commit to entering Pakistan, saying "I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours and their country in a manner complete with bombings and so forth. I think his comments were ill timed and ill considered" (Let's ignore the fact that the grammar of that last quote sucks).
Let’s ignore the Republican political ploy to take credit for Osama’s non-political death by inserting Bush into the conversation despite the reality of what I explained about him. Let’s ignore the fact that Romney himself, for political purposes, downplayed the very real and difficult non-political decision that Obama made, by saying“even Jimmy Carter” would have made that decision. And its not just this issue. Let's ignore the same game Republicans played about Gaddhafi, criticizing Obama incessantly until Gaddhafi fell and then not giving Obama any credit.
Let’s ignore all of that.
Arianna plays politics too. For just one example, (since I am way too busy to be reading much more of her) in a blog, she attacks Obama for asking the American people to wait longer for change. She accuses him of reneging on his promise of “the fierce urgency of now” and mocking his position as “the fierce urgency of two or three more presidents”. She even titles her diary "On Obama, Teddy Roosevelt, And The Not-So-Fierce Urgency Of Maybe Next Term". Now, let’s get one thing straight. Just because something takes a long time to achieve doesn’t mean no urgency was involved. For example, Martin Luther King, the person whom Obama quoted, would not have met Arianna's standard since the Civil Rights movement took 13 years to succeed. Let's ignore that small fact for right now.
Simply by mocking Obama’s use of the quote, she implies that Obama is not living up to King’s vision. By mocking Obama, she is implying that King would support Arianna’s idea of urgency over Obama’s idea of it. Is that not playing politics? What is the difference between Obama’s claim that Romney would have acted a certain way (when there is clear evidence to prove his point) and Arianna’s implication that a certain historical figure would act a certain way and support her over Obama? How despicable is that?