So Much Winning?

When Trump announced that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a military operation, this was supposed to be a win. He announced that there would be news coming Sunday morning the night before on Twitter, and within moments, it seemed, people knew this is what it was likely about. But instead of simply stating the bare facts of the operation and letting someone from the Pentagon field any questions, Trump's ego got the better of him, and he sort of killed the moment with his mouth. 

He compared the death of al-Baghdadi with the operation against Osama bin Laden (of course Trump says he got the bigger terrorist, and if people only listened to him, they would have known about bin Laden before 9/11, which is just absurd). He thanked Russia first, which was odd, because their Defense Ministry definitely seemed cool about what even happened. He also told them about it before notifying any Democratic lawmakers (which certainly wasn't about operational security--it was pettiness).  And, while he tried to make it appear that this operation came about as a result of his decision with respects to pulling back in Syria--that doesn't seem to have helped matters at all, but made them more difficult. 

He went on in morbid detail about crying, whimpering al-Baghdadi (rather more than good taste or sense would have allowed) but it appears that he wouldn't have seen anything from the tunnel in which the terrorist deployed his explosive vest. And he went on about Syria's oil again, which the US doesn't have a right to and wouldn't be that valuable to us, anyway. While the world won't mourn al-Baghdadi, Trump somehow managed to make his death announcement grotesque and pulled the sense of victory out of it. 

At the top of the post, I have the somewhat stagey-looking picture released by the White House of Trump in the Situation Room. That was supposed to be the iconic takeaway image of the day. The actual picture to take away from today is this:

This picture, showing an "Impeach Trump" banner being unfurled at Nationals Park where trump attended Game 5 of the World Series, shows the real story of the day: Trump was booed and met with chants of "Lock him up." Nothing he does will win with the people who have seen enough of his presidency for a lifetime. 

Of course, it's a job well done for Delta Force and the rest of our fighting men and women, and our partners in the region. To them all thanks. But a dose of reality should be Trump's reward.