Of course not. In fact, I believe he was well within his authority — though there was no pressing emergency, so I believe he should have gone to Congress to seek a joint authorization, and he should have spoken directly to the American people rather than phoning in orders from Carnivale.
But then, I’m not Joe Biden. Thank god.
(thanks to Stephen G)
But is it a big fucking deal? That’s what I want to know.
Crude over 105. Libya on fire. Japan glowing like a lightning bug in August. And the market is flat.
Why is it not down 500 pts? One theory is that the greatest fear for investors is another term for Obama, and he’s looking so stupid now that it may have been allayed.
It’s a theory.
The difference is, Jeff, that Biden doesn’t say it lightly. In fact, it sounds as if he doesn’t say “I don’t say it lightly” lightly.
Further levels of nesting might cause the innernets to ‘splode.
It would also help if he did not call for Qadaffi’s ouster, then change the mission to protecting the rebels, and then to humanitarian, and then vaccilate on leadership to the point the Euroweenies are all scattering like scared little rabbits. Qadaffi might just survive this, and there is a message being sent to the Iranians on this one. Want to keep the west out of your affairs? Get Nukes.
Boy oh boy, Obama is making Bush look better and better all the time.
And McGehee, this is more of a big fucking mess.
This has all the warning signs of turning into another epic disaster in Africa.
Boy oh boy, Obama is making Bush look better and better all the time.
And by “better and better” you, of course, mean going from “a man of highest character being decisive and sticking to his principles at all costs” to “all that AND able to turn water into Red Bull and vodka”.
I think the question of impeachment is meant to juxtaposition Obama with Bush and the calls for his impeachment over Iraq.
When Bush had a larger international coalition, greater UN authority, and congressional approval for attacking Saddam.
Proggs are nothing if not inconsistent.
I think this impeachment angle is pretty much a non-starter. No matter what the talking heads are saying, the President can pretty much do as he wants on foreign policy, including military action. Of course, eventually Congress can act by not funding his adventure, but otherwise, there is not a lot that can be done.
I consider this all to be more political theater. However, it certainly is amusing for us when the Democrats can be shown to be continually stepping on their cranks. Then, we can imagine an unbiased MBM (this being the ultimate MBM because it won’t exist again for a while, if ever) that would call them out on this kind of thing just as it would for Republicans.
If the progressives hadn’t been shielded by the MBM all this time, I don’t think they could have got this far.
All I can say is: thank God we don’t have that idiot Sarah Palin in the co-pilot’s seat.
That is one tough son of a bitch.
All I know is… You put the Germans, French and British together in North Africa and there’s gonna be a fight.
VDH weighs in:
From LMC’s link, it turns out when you have a weak President who apparently doesn’t believe in much besides his own greatness, holding a coalition together is difficult if not impossible. What a shocker!
I think maybe Joe just had a bit too much to ski.
My ADHD is showing. All I saw in cranky’s post was “LMC” “weak” “holding” “difficult” and “shocker”. Now I think he was spying on me last Saturday.
I think this impeachment angle is pretty much a non-starter.
I don’t think this is a call for impeachment so much as an opportunity to rub the Proggie’s noses in it some more. Their chocolate messiah wishes he could be half the man Dubya was, pursues all the same policies that Dubya did, and yet there is no Code Pink, no International ANSWER, no Vets Against the War clamoring about war crimes and impeachment. This stammering nincompoop looks down his nose at the electorate, insults our allies and reassures our enemies abroad, and yet there is no parade of talking heads telling us about the aloof, incompetent, ignorant cowboy.
Footage like this serves as one more arrow in the quiver when it comes time to ask the Proggs and the MFM “Why the hell should we listen to you ignorant, bigoted hypocrites?” They will not be allowed to forget nor deny their perfidy over the past decade.
Having that (D) stamp on a stupid and unnecessary war makes all the difference, it seems. Amazing lack of outrage/squealing from TUS, eh wat?
As for Joe, he’s a moron. Who cares what he thinks?
Michael Barone weighs in on “The damning contradictions of Obama’s attack on Libya“.
One thing I see in all of this is that when Obama is dealing with those he considers his “real” enemies he acts with speed and will use all forces at him command to attempt to crush them and win. Unfortunately those enemies are never tyrants overseas but always his political opponents at home.
As for Joe, he’s a moron. Who cares what he thinks?
Not me. At least, not until Obama decides that his current job is Just Too Hard, and he goes back to organizing communities in Chicago. Then I might change my mind.
*It’s a theory.*
Its a good theory. Small business owners I know are counting on a 2012 defeat and repeal of Obama care. If t hat doesn’t happen, as one small business owner friend of mine noted, “Ill become a much smaller business owner, mostly just me” In my profession, the trend seems to be attorneys are making due with far less staff, especially attorneys running their own firms. Technology has made it possible to do alot more with less but will end up happening is the (mostly) woman who make a decent living putting up with lawyer crap will find themselves unable to find new jobs. I had a 4 year plan to strike out on my own by next year but between my finances and economy, I’m stuck where I am, miserable working for someone else.
More hope and change
*Qadaffi might just survive this,*
Or the in alternative, Al Queda gets control of the country. I’m sure most of you have seen the proclamation from Al Queda this morning about how the rebels must continue to fight.
That sounds suspiciously like we are supporting Al Queda against Qudaffi. The Jug Eared Dear Leader should have just stayed out of it.
Impeachable offense? No way.
But I agree with Squid and Cranky that this presents an opportunity to rub the proggy’s noses in their own hypocritical pablum that’s too good to pass up. But I personally choose to do so not by arguing against the legitimacy of the operation itself, but merely by asking them to explain how their outlook changed so dramatically. Here in NYC I get a lot of delicious opportunity…
I’ve already been afforded a few opportunities. Just the other day I was part of a conversation among Democrats, some more liberal than others, regarding the “legitimacy” of the action. A couple were vociferously asserting that it was completely out of bounds, with a few others maintaing it’s necessity and righteousness. Knowing me to be a hawk, they sought a more, ahem, bipartisan assessment by asking me to weigh in.
I asked them to outline in their opinions the differences between this situation and Iraq. Of course, the consent! of the international communtity! was cited, as well as the coalition, which, I pointed out, was lesser in number than Bush’s coalition of the willing in Iraq; and that the war began following Saddam’s refusal to comply with UN resolutions that numbered in the double-digits. Then the point was made that this action was in support of deposing an evil dictator who’s proven his willingness to slaughter civilians; to which I responded by talking about Saddam’s actions against the Kurds, using chemical WMDs, while the international community and President Clinton hand-wrung over the situation but ordered no action taken.
Clearly peeved, one of the participants accused me of trying to make political hay while our warriors were in harms way; having enforced a couple of NFZ in my day, I assured them I was not, but was simply trying to understand the differences between the application of military power in Iraq and Libya. She then asked me directly, what I thought were the differences.
“Well”, I said, “It seems to me that the most obvious difference is that Mr. Obama hasn’t yet admitted that we’re at war to effect a regime change, which Mr. Bush was completely transparent about. He needs to be more honest about what’s going on instead of claiming that we’re acting only in a supporting role, using buzzwords like “shaping the battle-space”, when in fact US pilots are involved on strike missions over Libya. But perhaps the most glaring difference in my opinion is that, unlike Mr. Bush, Obama hasn’t bothered to consult with the US Congress before ordering the commencement of kinetics-but I guess he figures that the UN assembly trumps that body anyway…”
Dude, I pushed the right button! I listended to the carewaul for a second, and excused myself in the name of fetching another beer, but as I walked away there was heated debate occuring over whether approval of the UN rendered congressional approval moot, with the most liberal and transnational asserting it was, and the other Dems talking about what the US Constitution requires; which, I noted, meant that there was hope for some of them yet.
In addition to muttering, “Mission Accomplished”, to myself as I pulled another pint off the keg…
I agree with this bit of Alex Spillius’s comment in the Telegraph:
The rest, not so much. It was always about doing the absolute minimum for Bumbles. Just enough for the optics to be favourable. No cleverness, just low political cunning on the part of one of his advisors, probably Axelrod.
Ok, the bolded part for me is interesting as I am having a conversation with someone on another blog and he claims that with this Libyan bombing, Obama has more UN approval than Bush did for Iraq. Now, I couldn’t give two shits less about UN approval for anything under the sun, while also not being a proponent of going into Iraq, but I don’t seem to remember the UN specifics. Can you help a guy with some serious memory problems out and explain to me how Bush had more UN approval? I believe you, mind you, I just don’t remember the specifics and would like to explain it to the other guy. Thanks.
And I know it’s preacing to the choir, but the hypocrisy is definitely on the left’s foot here as they are on record contradicting everything they said while Bush was president. The right is calling the left out and as usual the left is bitching about being caught.
Bush Double The Coalition in Iraq Than Obama Has in Libya
Try here, OI, and see previous resolutions listed in 1st para.
Thanks for the info. I already knew about the coalition sizes and my counter didn’t care for that. Something about anybody will go to war with anybody else or some crap like that. As for the resolution, I believe his stance will be that it was up to the whole council to actually declare military action as opposed to individual nations within the council. In this Libyan action, the council did agree to action. Again, I think the failure here will be that he will continue to appeal to the UN, being the good statist that he is, while I think the UN can sink into the East river and never be seen again and there will be a net benefit to mankind.
OI, There were 14 different UN resolutions authorizing the use of force in Iraq, over an extended period of time. Libya got one hurried resolution, that wasn’t even run by our own congress first.
The hypocrisy, it stinks.
Can we just stipulate that when we speak of Joe Biden we say so explicitly every time, instead of just calling him “Joe?”
I’m really glad there isn’t a nationally known nincompoop named “McGehee.”
Though in my case “nationally known” would be the operative distinction.
Can somebody remind me whether Clinton signed a resolution calling for regime change in Libya back when he was President?
Yeah, I’m piling on. It’s fun!