Obama: Let Me ‘Sleep On It’ (Ace: 7 Minutes vs. 16 Hours)

In honor of our Commander in chief doing the following, based originally on a New York Times item, with bit of British paraphrasing supplied by the UK Daily Mail …

Obama took SIXTEEN HOURS to make up his mind about Bin Laden mission

Barack Obama kept military commanders hanging by declaring he would ‘sleep on it’ before taking 16 hours to give the go-ahead to raid Bin Laden’s compound.

… I hereby bring you “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights,” with that immortal line from Meat Loaf — “Let me sleep on it” (readers, please forgive the borderline “R” content):

In all seriousness, it’s a good thing that the mission didn’t get compromised by this sadly characteristic dithering.

Related, at Ace’s Place (HT Instapundit): “Seven Minutes vs. Sixteen Hours”:

Sixteen hours later (hours during which Osama might have fled– bear in mind, his courier’s name had just been outed by WikiLeaks), he made up his mind.

… So, after 16 hours of vacillation, during which the operation might have been rendered a failure by intervening invents, he fist-bumps a piece of furniture and finally makes up his mind.

This is something to brag about? This is, in Howard Fineman’s words, “almost Biblical”?

Seems like a very cautious, feckless, indecisive individual delaying and delaying on critical decisions and then attempting to sound heroic when he finally does what he’s being paid to do.

… So why should I praise Obama for a choice that every single one of his predecessors and every plausible successor would also make?

And probably not requiring 16 hours to do so, either.

I think we now know why the speech was so good (and yes, it was uncharacteristically very good). He had 16 hours, which turned into 40 because of a weather-releated operational delay, to prepare.