To hear the press talk about it, Obama himself killed the pirates and personally set the hostage/captain free. That’s not what happened:

…two pirates moved to one of the hatches of the lifeboat and stuck their heads out. The third pirate advanced toward the captain and pointed his AK-47 straight at Phillips’s back, the rifle touching it or inches away, the official said.

U.S. military observers thought that Phillips was about to be shot. SEAL snipers, who were positioned on a deck at the stern of the Bainbridge, an area known as the fantail, had the three pirates in their sights. The on-scene commander gave the snipers authority to fire.

“As soon as the snipers had a clear shot at the guy who had the rifle, they shot him and the other two in the hatches,” the senior military official said.

A member of the Special Operations team slid down the tow line into the water and climbed aboard the lifeboat. Phillips was then put in a small craft and taken to the Bainbridge.

Sounds to me like the on-scene commander is the one who deserves the accolades, wouldn’t you say? In any normal world, that’s what you’d expect. Instead, we’re treated to moronic nonsense like this:

For President Obama, last week’s confrontation with Somali pirates posed similar political risks to a young commander in chief who had yet to prove himself to his generals or his public.

But the result — a dramatic and successful rescue operation by U.S. Special Operations forces — left Obama with an early victory that could help build confidence in his ability to direct military actions abroad.

Throughout the past four days, White House officials played down Obama’s role in the hostage drama. Until yesterday, he made no public statements about the pirates.

In fact, aides said yesterday, Obama had been briefed 17 times since he returned from his trip abroad, including several times from the White House Situation Room. And without giving too many details, senior White House officials made it clear that Obama had provided the authority for the rescue.

“The president’s focus was on saving and protecting the life of the captain,” one adviser said. Friday evening, after a National Security Council telephone update, Obama granted U.S. forces what aides called “the authority to use appropriate force to save the life of the captain.” On Saturday at 9:20 a.m., Obama went further, giving authority to an “additional set of U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions.”

A top military official, Vice Adm. William E. Gortney, commander of the Fifth Fleet, explained that Obama issued a standing order that the military was to act if the captain’s life was in immediate danger.

“Our authorities came directly from the president,” he said. “And the number one authority for incidents if we were going to respond was if the captain’s life was in immediate danger. And that is the situation in which our sailors acted.”

After the rescue ended, White House officials immediately offered expanded information about Obama’s role, though the president simply released a statement praising the troops and expressing pride in the captain’s bravery.

The operation pales in scope and complexity to the wars underway in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Obama’s adversaries are unlikely to be mollified by his performance in a four-day hostage drama.

Nonetheless, it may help to quell criticism leveled at Obama that he came to office as a Democratic antiwar candidate who could prove unwilling or unable to harness military might when necessary.

What a pathetic joke this is. While Obama does deserve credit for sending the navy in to rescue this guy and take on the pirates, he doesn’t deserve any credit for his eventual rescue. The sailors on the scene do. When they are put into positions like this, they have an automatic set of engagement rules, one of which is that they use whatever force is necessary if a hostage’s life is in immediate danger. They don’t require presidential authorization, because it’s basically already been given when they were sent in. It’s implied in their mission, if you will.

If this entire incident proves anything, it proves how inept Obama is. He required seventeen (17) briefings on the matter and had to be asked twice by the navy whether or not to use force (which is where his “authorization” finally came into play). His answer? Only if the captain’s life was in immediate danger. So basically, he just confirmed what their rules of engagement already were, didn’t issue any new orders at all, yet he gets full credit for this entire episode. Unreal. And they wonder why terrorists, thugs, and rogue nations think we’re a bunch of pansies. Well, here’s your answer!

Again, I do give credit where credit is due. Obama did react properly in sending in the navy to deal with these guys. If he hadn’t done that, we would have torn him a new one (and so would the American people), these pirates would be more inclined to take more ships and more hostages, and we would be seen as weak and open to attack. So I do give him credit for doing what he should have done, but you can’t really give someone credit for doing something they’re supposed/expected to do in the first place.

Let’s not kid ourselves, here. His involvement ended the moment he sent in the navy. He played no further significant role in the captain’s rescue anymore than I did. Indeed, he couldn’t have. Once the dice were rolled, there was nothing to do but wait to see how they landed.

The briefings he received were most likely “this is what we know, this is what’s happening” kind of stuff, not any “this is what we can do, here’s what we recommend” options. And, to be fair, there’s very little else Obama could have done once he sent in the navy.

I’m not attacking Obama for doing the right thing, here, but I am pointing out the media (and the left’s) attempt to spin this as some sort of victory for him, when it’s no such thing. Over the next four years, Obama will do things that are right and things that are wrong, and we can pick those apart/praise him as the case may warrant. But we shouldn’t sit still while the media and the left try to hang victories on him that aren’t his and don’t belong to him.

Update: Right on cue, here’s the AP complaining about how we made more pirates because of this incident:

Experts indicated that piracy in the Indian Ocean off Somalia, which transformed one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes into one of its most dangerous, has entered a new phase with the Navy SEAL rescue operation of Phillips.

It “could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it,” said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

The International Maritime Bureau said Monday it supported the action by the U.S. and French navies, but cautioned it may spark retaliatory moves by pirates.

“We applaud the U.S. and the French action. We feel that they are making the right move, although the results sometimes may be detrimental,” said Noel Choong of the IMB’s piracy center in Kuala Lumpur.

Sigh…doesn’t the left get tired of floating this meme? I mean, that’s all we heard about Bush and the war on terrorism, that by fighting the war, we were creating more terrorists. Now they’re telling us that by fighting the pirates we’re creating more pirates. See how that works? By their logic, arresting criminals only serves to create more criminals. Fighting a problem only makes it worse, so we shouldn’t even try. And they wonder why we call them “Defeatocrats”…