Was Bergdahl a deserter? . . . Or a troubled young man who needed help?

Sam Stein of the Huffington Pos, wrote a very thoughtful piece about the prisoner exchange that brought back Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five Guantanamo detainees. 

Was Bergdahl a deserter, punishable by firing squad death?   Or was he a troubled young soldier, sent to fight for a dubious cause in a war no longer fully supported by fellow Americans,  who needed help?

Republicans and FoxNews wasted no time turning it into a political battle -- more of President Obama's feckless and dangerously weak handling of foreign affairs.   He gave away too much, trading "the Taliban Dream Team" (so said Sen. Lindsey Graham) for one lowly enlisted man, who may have -- let's say, allegedly -- deserted his duty.   

Others have said that the president violated the Constitution in not consulting Congress and should be impeached.  Others suspect this is a backdoor method of emptying out Guantanamo.   Some of Bergdahl's former fellow soldiers have complained that the months-long searches for him after he disappeared resulted in the deaths of six soldiers, which they deeply resent.

Sam Stein points out that "No one has actually argued that Bergdahl should have been left behind, left to endure Taliban-style justice for walking off his post, . . . [but] The more illuminating question to ask, instead, is what would have happened politically had the White House sat on its hands and not acted?   Some of the very Republicans criticizing the president today were imploring him to do more to free Bergdahl just a few months prior. Some even suggested he pursue any means necessary to get him released. Let's say the White House had waited to act in hopes of a better deal -- and never reached one. What then?

One Obama administration official put it this way:  "Imagine the outrage from Republicans if we had left him there."    And, especially, if you think about leaving him there in the context of the fact that almost all of our troops will be coming home by the end of this year.   And leaving one behind in Taliban captivity -- however he got there.

What a privilege the opposition enjoys -- the freedom to criticize, no matter what the president does, without having the responsibility, without having to make any of the hard decisions or say what they would actually do differently, without having to take the garbage they throw at him.

Maybe it helps just a little bit to remember that it's no worse than they said about Abraham Lincoln.

Ralph