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Herman Cain trashed President Obama last night during the GOP debate for being "weak" and even for "jeopardizing" the mission that successfully killed bin Laden last Sunday. Here is what he said: "
"He sat on the [Afghanistan] surge decision for months," Cain said. "We don't know how many men and women might have been killed while he was waiting. We don't know how much it jeopardized this latest mission to get bin Laden because he waited 16 hours to make the decision. When you've got a mission that is that precise, down to every little detail, a president that procrastinates puts people's lives in jeopardy."
There is a difference between procrastinating and analyzing the potential downside of any action in advance. For example, what if Donald Rumsfeld had thought a little bit harder about the downside of invading Iraq, maybe the quagmire might have been avoided. One of President Obama's finest, albeit extended, moments came when he sat on the decision to commence a surge in Afghanistan. When his top advisors were unable to justify their suggestions adequately, he rightly sent them back to the drawing board to think through the matter more carefully. That is prudence, not procrastination, and whatever you thought of Obama's eventual decision to do the surge, there should be no quibbling with the method by which he reached his decision.
Mind you, Mr. Cain is a man for whom the previous biggest decision of his life was whether or not to put garlic-infused olive oil on a pizza crust. Earth to GOP - You have a problem.
