If I am the President today and I just found out about a situation last month, I would ignore it because I have worse situations on my plate for today!

Hello a:

Which hostage crisis are you referring to? We have hostages in N. Korea, Iran, Gaza, Afghanistan, Mexico and there maybe a few other lessor hostage crises going on...

excon

Yes, there are hostages all over the world, besides temporary ones in the US that are handled by police.

And in general, it is not really the Presidents role to do anything, there are policies in place for military to use.