Chan Lowe | Sun-Sentinel Blogs

What a feel-good moment. We certainly needed it. Reminds me of the "Miracle on Ice" during the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, and more recently, the Hudson River plane crash.

The first thing that struck me when I heard the news on Easter Sunday was how capricious fate can be. Barack Obama is being hailed as a man who, when tested, made the right decision under pressure.

What if, God forbid, a rogue wave had lapped against the side of the little lifeboat, throwing off the rhythm of one of our snipers just enough so that he hit the hostage, instead of his captor, in a horrible accident? The President would be condemned as a man whose intemperate rush to conclude the impasse cost an innocent man his life, when further negotiation might have yielded fruit.

I would have liked to be inside Jimmy Carter's head for a moment yesterday. Remember when he sent the task force into Iran to free the hostages, and the effort ended in tragedy? All because a few rotor blades got tangled up with each other, and some sand got in the engines. Had it succeeded, he might have been reelected.

Upon such discrete and seemingly trivial phenomena do the great wheels of History turn.

Comments

Now, what is wrong with this picture? Why do we allow the "great wheels of history" to turn on the whims of our elected dictators?

The Somali pirates detained vessels in order to steal. The US Navy, under dictators Bush the elder, Clinton the moral, and W the intellectual, did pretty much the same thing when they placed Iraq under embargo in order to control its oil wealth. This embargo was certainly part of the motivation for the 9/11 attacks. Thus turns the great wheel of history.

Posted by: Lolly | April 14, 2009 1:43 PM

"All we need is love..."

Posted by: Fred Caruso | April 21, 2009 9:48 AM

Except details are now emerging and the facts that Obama waited four days and eventually the decision to 'go' was made by the Commander in Charge on site - not by the President.

BUT, there Obama was in his favorite place, in front of the cameras to grab the credit!

Posted by: Vudu | April 21, 2009 11:33 AM

Vudu has it right. Obama made no "decision under pressure" except to refuse to make a decision. Hail the Commander-in-charge, not the Commander-in-Chief!

Posted by: sdg | April 24, 2009 3:00 PM

Which way to the Carribean?

Posted by: Barb Moss | April 25, 2009 11:49 AM

Uh-oh here comes the ACLU!

Posted by: Jim Rose | April 25, 2009 3:41 PM

We really know who completed this, don't we?

Posted by: rev. marvin e. purser jr. | April 27, 2009 6:11 AM