Banishing The Ghosts Of The Carter Administration's Failures

Photoillustration by John Ritter.

As a kid who watched the TV news reports in 1980 of the botched "Operation Eagle Claw" in the Iranian desert, bewildered and confused how US Special Forces could get themselves killed in a failed rescue attempt, I read Nicolas Schmidle's piece in The New Yorker this morning (link here) about Operation Neptune's Spear with a renewed sense of pride and satisfaction.  In my perspective, 31 years later, this piece could have been titled "Banishing The Ghosts Of The Carter Administration's Failures" - showing that a Democratic President can be the commander in chief and make competent decisions to set national security policy into motion.

It's an excellent piece, factual, revealing, straight forward, and well worth the read.  Highly recommended.  No hype.  It fills in the gaps that I had in my mind - many of them which had lingered for decades.  And, it reassures me that I voted for the right guy, who makes good decisions, and who is a nice person, a decent man.  "Obama wanted to know how [The US Pakistani former desk CIA job translator] 'Ahmed' had kept locals at bay; he also inquired about the fallen Black Hawk and whether above-average temperatures in Abbottabad had contributed to the crash." He wanted to understand the human aspect AND get to the ROOT CAUSE of the biggest mechanical failure issue! 
...and then... about the Belgian Malinois, Cairo:  "I want to meet that dog".  It almost brought a tear to my eye.  =)