President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden, at the hands of US Navy SEALs, on Sunday night. This announcement unleashed a firestorm of news coverage that is still reverberating, even today. Reacting to this surprise, politicians and pundits scrambled on Monday for their own responsive and appropriate sound bite. No more torturous was this struggle for words self-evident than among the field of leading Republican presidential hopefuls.
Of the eight leading GOP hopefuls, pictured in caricature above, almost all had praise for our military and intelligence services. Where the field split was on the matter of assigning credit to Obama. Some like Tim Pawlenty, praised the president, by name, “for a job well done.” For others like Mike Huckabee, he was merely the announcer, just a reader of a teleprompter. Some like, Bachmann and Palin didn’t even mention him at all. The most profuse congratulations came from The Donald himself. Interestingly, last Saturday night while Obama was cutting up at the annual press corps dinner and also roasting Trump, he had already given the order to proceed and the SEAL Team was already in motion.
- President Obama confirmed the announcement… – Mike Huckabee
- Congratulations to our intelligence community, our military and the president. – Mitt Romney
- I want to personally congratulate President Obama and the men and women of the Armed Forces for a job well done. – Donald Trump
- I commend both President George W. Bush who led the campaign against our enemies through seven long years and President Obama who continued and intensified the campaign… – Newt Gingrich
- God bless all the brave men and women in our military and our intelligence services who contributed to carrying out the successful mission to bring Bin Laden to justice… – Sarah Palin
- I want to express my deepest gratitude to the men and women of the U.S. military and intelligence community. – Michele Bachmann
- I want to congratulate America’s armed forces and President Obama for a job well done. – Tim Pawlenty
- [No comment] – Ron Paul
During the 2008 campaign Obama’s detractors delighted in drawing comparisons between the one character difference between Barack’s last name and bin Laden’s first. After Sunday, those two names will be even more indelibly linked together. Not in the wink, wink fashion of old, but in a manner that will likely make a few Tea Party heads explode, once they steep on it.
The caricatures of the leading eight GOP 2012 presidential candidates were created by Donkey Hotey. The above list of quotes from these same GOP hopefuls, was compiled in part from the following linked to article written by Kaili Joy Gray, on the Daily Kos website.