Yo Ho Ho

The U.S. economy is showing only glimmers of life and two costly wars remain in the balance, but President Barack Obama's "no drama" handling of the Indian Ocean hostage crisis proved a big win for his administration in its first critical national security test.

Obama's quiet backstage decision to authorize the Defense Department to take necessary action if Capt. Richard Phillips' life was in imminent danger gave a Navy commander the go-ahead to order snipers to fire on the pirates holding the cargo ship captain at gunpoint.

For Obama, the benefits were instantly clear: an American life saved and a major victory notched against an increasingly worrisome scourge of the seas off the Horn of Africa.

The Left will now spin this as this heroic CIC, under pressure, calmly giving the order to "take the shot" (airing Thursday in the ABC Movie of the Week).

No.

Obama should have given the order for "necessary action" but ultimately the heroes are the commander who, in fact, gave the order and the snipers who executed it. It was split decision and one that I suspect does not weigh lightly on a man's conscience. Obama's role is akin to FDR saying take "necessary action" to secure the beaches at Normandy.

But how much do you want to bet that the media plays up Obama's "role" and we never hear mention of the men who did the deed?

Read this perspective:

What should have been a standoff lasting only hours — as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location — became an embarrassing four-day-and-counting standoff between a rag-tag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship.

Instead of taking direct, decisive action against the rag-tag group of gunmen, the Obama administration dilly-dallied, dawdled, and eschewed any decisiveness whatsoever, even in the face of enemy fire, in hopes that the situation would somehow resolve itself without violence — thus sending a clear message to all who would threaten U.S. interests abroad that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has no idea how to respond to such situations, and no real willingness to use military force to resolve them.

Any who think they weren’t watching every minute of this are guilty — at best — of greatly underestimating our enemies.

Like the crew of the Alabama, which took swift and decisive action to take back their own ship rather than wait for help from Washington that they knew could not be counted on, Captain Philips took matters into his own hands for the second time in three days this afternoon, leaping into the water to create a diversion and allowing the NSWC team to eliminate his captors. The result, of course, was the best that could possibly be expected: three pirates dead, the captain unharmed, and a fourth Somali man who had surrendered late Saturday night in custody.

Punk Somalis on a rubber raft should be taken out immediately. I applaud the commander, who lacking any clear orders from Washington DC took control of the matter. Does anyone really think that yesterday was the first time the gunmen "leveled an AK-47" at the back of Capt. Phillips? No, usually hostages have the guns pointed at them all the time. What I suspect happened was that a clear shot was available . . . and was taken.