We're no Winston Churchill nation, thankfully.

Now, I'm saving the Martin Gilbert 8-volume biography for my retirement. More reading time then. And I like Winnie. He's got a dope reputation as not giving in under pressure.

But do I think President Obama's verbal reference* was effective last night? Nope.

It's the same reason we had to take out the pirates holding American captives -- you don't mess w/Americans like that. We don't care if the shipping interests would be willing to see Americans held as ransom, only too happy to do the cost-benefit calculations and find it cheaper to pay the private costs of doing business.

And you fight tooth and nail, together as Americans, not to get yourself in that position of weakness again. That's why the crew immediately disabled the ship as the pirates initially boarded, so it couldn't be seized.

Sure, the young liberals, the well educated expressed their humane concerns: "Was it really necessary to kill them?" or, "What evidence did the SEAL shooters have that the captain's life was in 'imminent danger'?" as if the military men were not to take those shots at the first opportunity to free the American.

Respectfully, I think that talk doesn't understand the American mindset. At the time, I thought President Obama "got it". Maybe it was holiday generosity, because lately he seems to be embracing the academic outlook again.

Back to Winston Churchill. A bulldog. Led his country through some dark days... days that perhaps England might not have survived were it not for America's infusion of fresh blood into the fight.

A Sunday painter (I've got a book around here somewhere...) A sharp, military minded man. Not a quitter.

But, c'mon. How do you go in a news conference from the deadly seriousness of advising hand washing for a pandemic, into a not-so-veiled slap at an earlier administration's policies, and then blow off a serious question about, "But what if Pakistan's nuclear weapons fall into Al Quada hands, would you consider Enhanced Interrogation Techniques on the table even then?"

I'm not saying you don't stick by your principles necessarily. Just that evoking the leadership of Winston Churchill in a different time on torture, and bringing up an image of Britains huddled in their subway holes as the bombs rained down ... well again, wouldn't they have lost w/o American help in that War? So can we really look to Churchill on the subject, or put Americans in that metaphorical condition to justify our enlightened policies of late?

See, we're all playing on one team here, folks. (D) and (R) maybe to a society entuned lately in a show of reality that somehow revolves around "You're Fired" or "The Tribe has Voted You Out" or a dozen other variations of "We Don't Work Together, but Scheme Against Each Other to Final Elimination."

Is your reality like that? Not me. Must be tough to maintain families, communities and cooperative workplaces if that mentality has truly set in.

Which brings us back to the bomb shelters and those who see American capture as just another cost of doing business. If you don't have that other understanding of why it's important not to show weakness to outsiders who will use it against you, then I would submit you're not fully versed in American history.

Not just the written down kind to be probed and studied. But the pulsing, moving ... winning young energy kind that forces the play, and moves us forward in the end. Words are good, but actions are priceless.

------------------------

Underlying my concern, is how the president seems to push off the big problems as not of his making, and somehow unexpected.

You ran for President, and are now bleating -- in a smiley way --that there are too many problems demanding your attention? Wow. I'm sure Mr. McCain knew what he was getting into, and wouldn't be talking like that.

Ditto this cocky, smiley talk of inheriting the debt and economy. He talked his way through the serious questions -- about pulling out of Iraq on timetable, just referencing possible al Quaeda operations there today. And he expressed gratitude to America's service members, like he didn't really understand -- having no experience himself -- how humbling their positions often are.

Maybe it's me. I don't have kids in daycare; I think we're going back to the days of easy-living-on-borrowed-credit (and look where that got us when the bills came due); and on this liberal-based, John-Kerry-in-a-darker-skin-tone foreign policy approach, I vote "no confidence".

Just don't see how we can survive 4 years huddling and hoping, and joking about America's security. It's a false ease, really.

-------------------------
In case you missed the press conference, here's the transcript reference:

President: I was struck by an article that I was reading the other day talking about the fact that the British, during World War II, when London was being bombed to smithereens, had 200 or so detainees. And Churchill said, "we don't torture," when the -- the entire British -- all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat. And -- and -- and the reason was that Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts, and over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people.

It corrodes the character of a country.

And -- and so I strongly believe that the steps that we've taken to prevent these kind of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term, and make us safer over the long term, because it will put us in a -- in a position where we can still get information. In some cases, it may be harder. But part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals, even when it's hard, not just when it's easy.

At the same time, it takes away a critical recruitment tool that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians. And it makes us -- it puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks.

So this is a decision that I am very comfortable with, and I think the American people over time will recognize that it is better for us to stick to who we are, even when we're taking on a unscrupulous enemy.

Okay --

QUESTION: Sorry, sir --

MR. OBAMA: I'm sorry.

QUESTION: Do you believe the previous administration sanctioned torture?

MR. OBAMA: I believe that waterboarding was torture. And I think that the -- whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake.

Mark Knoller.

QUESTION: Thank you, sir. Let me follow up, if I may, on Jake's question. Did you read the documents recently referred to by former Vice President Cheney and others, saying that the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques not only protected the nation but saved lives? And if part of the United States were under imminent threat, could you envision yourself ever authorizing the use of those enhanced interrogation techniques?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I -- I have read the documents.

Now, they haven't been officially declassified and released. And so I don't want to go into the details of them.

But here's what I can tell you, that the public reports and the public justifications, for these techniques, which is that we got information, from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, doesn't answer the core question which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?

That's the responsibility I wake up with. And it's the responsibility I go to sleep with. And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe.

But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking shortcuts that undermine who we are.

And -- and there have been no circumstances during the course of this first hundred days in which I have seen information that would make me second-guess the decision that I've made. Okay?

I re-read that, and I get that "Mommy-in-Chief" non-confidence feeling again. As though it's a success we've had no peril to face in the first 100 days...