Libya resolution all about partisanship

Friday’s resolution by the House of Representatives concerning U.S. military activity in Libya was all-too-predictable.

OBAMA: Getting too much credit?



That resolution got a 257-156 vote from the GOP-led House, and it says President Barack Obama should have come to them first to get them to approve the use of military force to keep Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi from running more roughshod over his people than he usually does.

REMEMBER BACK A month ago when Obama was the star of the moment because Navy SEALS managed to take down Osama bin Laden? One of my initial thoughts was to wonder how long it would take before Obama’s ideological opposition tried to shift the focus from U.S. forces taking down bin Laden, to U.S. forces just a few days earlier failing to kill Gadhafi.

Although they did get his son. For some people – particularly those who are determined to find fault with Obama regardless of what he actually does – they’re going to complain constantly.

That is how I see Friday’s resolution.

The Obama opponents are now trying to make it seem that the president is a screw-up for the mess in Libya, and they want to try every unsubtle measure they can think of to plant that thought in our brains.

PERSONALLY, I DON’T think Obama deserved so much praise for what happened to bin Laden. It happened on his watch. But it’s not like Obama himself came up with and single-handedly led the battle plan that resulted in those SEALS getting into (and shooting) bin Laden in that Pakistani compound.

He may be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but that means he got to say “yes” to a plan that was crafted by professional military types (which is why I think people who claim a president needs to have military service in his record are missing the point that he has experts to rely upon for such issues).

BOEHNER: Playing politics



Which means the worst possible scenario for the conservative ideologues would have been if Gadhafi had also perished. Because then the ideologues wouldn’t be able to complain.

Or they’d sound absolutely stupid for passing a resolution such as they did on Friday.

THAT RESOLUTION SAYS that Obama never “provide(d) Congress with a compelling rationale” for getting involved with the mess in Libya – which has been ongoing for about three months and doesn’t seen anywhere near to driving Gadhafi from power.

That resolution says Obama has 14 days to come up with a statement explaining why U.S. interests are benefitted by having our military involved in Libya.

Which means that some ideologue has visions of forcing Obama to justify himself, perhaps even apologizing for “screwing up” the operation. Of course, if he manages to win a second term in office, these same people will be the ones who change their focus from harassment to impeachment.

I would take the House criticism more seriously if not for the fact that I’m sure the overwhelming majority of Congress members fully support being involved in Libya and would desperately like to take down Gadhafi.

THE SAME HOUSE of Representatives that passed this goofy resolution voted against a measure that would have demanded the United States military pull out of Libya altogether.

And as House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said of Obama, “He has a chance to get this right. If he doesn’t, … we will make it right.”

Which really means that GOP ideologues are looking for a way to take credit for such operations for themselves. In their wildest dreams, they’d get all the credit for everything that goes right, and dump the blame on Obama for every mishap.

What makes the ideologues so determined to push for such measures? I think a part of it involves the various polls. They show Obama with a sizable number of people who do not approve of his job, but a larger number who do.

I NOTICED THE other day the Gallup Organization poll that showed Obama with a 53 percent approval rating, compared to only 39 percent disapproving.

Admittedly, that figure only lasted one day, and by Friday was down to 51 percent approving, with 42 percent disapproving. But that’s still quite a bit of people who think too highly of Obama and his job performance for the ideologues to feel comfortable. These are the people who live in their own little world, and think the rest of us should be forced to live in it with them.

Such figures go a long way toward showing their view of our society being out-of-whack with the bulk of us – who will spend the next year before trying to assess how successful the Obama presidency truly has been.

Our House of Representatives, which is supposed to represent the composition of our country, is showing that by taking on such goofy, nonsensical resolutions, they’re doing little more than falling down on the job.

  -30-