Well, I am not so concerned about the Pakistan part, but the "marginalizing" of Bin Laden was not enough for critics of Bush. They expected him to capture of kill Bin Laden, and not doing so was (according to the talking point) because of the "distraction" of the Iraq War.
However, now Obama is saying the same thing as Bush did about Bin Laden and, apparently, he is getting a pass from the left and the MSM because they seem to be lowering standards for him.
Basically, when Bush said something to the effect of Bin Laden being "marginalized" or otherwise out of power enough to be basically a non-threat at this point, it wasn't enough for his critics. They demanded that he be dead or capture. But now that Obama says it, so far none of those same people who critiqued Bush are saying anything about Obama being held to that same standard (and likely won't).
In other words, it was a disengenuous talking point of the left to smear Bush by moving the goalposts all along.
As to the "Bomb Pakistan" thing; here is what I have found...
This article reports that he claimed that, "as president he would consider military strikes against terrorists in Pakistan if the country refused to root them out." Here is the Obama quote that was drawn from;
If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.
In
this transcript from The Democratic Debate in New Hampshire, Obama said:
...if they [Pakistan] could not or would not do so, and we had actionable intelligence, then I would strike.
Here is the part of the
prepared remarks that seemed to start all of this.
I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will…
So he never directly said he would "bomb" Pakistan (as far as I can find), but he said he would "strike" or "act", presumably meaning militarily. It is highly doubtful that any strike would
not include bombing. And there is the concern voiced by the left in regards to Iraq that would apply here; that it could, in the long run, strengthen Al Queda by pushing the moderate majority in Pakistan to radicalism and terrorism.
There are a lot of parallels in this statement to what Bush actually
did in Iraq. The biggest difference is that Iraq was not our ally when we went it (Pakistan would be), Iraq was
actively supporting terrorism whereas Pakistan is not and in Iraq, we were looking to overthrow the government, whereas in Pakistan we would not be, according to this statement.
Basically, Obama supporters reaction to both the Pakistan comment and the Bin Laden being "marginalized" comment show the hypocritical and dishonest double standard they hold Bush to as opposed to their "Messiah".
