The GOP presidential candidates who spent months criticizing President Obama’s Libya policy look like fools today with the announcement that Gaddafi is dead. Let’s take a look at how wrong Republicans like Mitt Romney were.
Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan strongman who was responsible for one of the worst acts of pre-9/11 terrorism is dead, and it was the leadership of Barack Obama that has gotten justice for the victims of Lockerbie and helped get Libya out from under the thumb of one of the most eccentric and brutal dictators in history.
In March, President Obama kicked George W. Bush’s cowboy diplomacy to the curb, “In such cases, we should not be afraid to act – but the burden of action should not be America’s alone. As we have in Libya, our task is instead to mobilize the international community for collective action. Because contrary to the claims of some, American leadership is not simply a matter of going it alone and bearing all of the burden ourselves. Real leadership creates the conditions and coalitions for others to step up as well; to work with allies and partners so that they bear their share of the burden and pay their share of the costs; and to see that the principles of justice and human dignity are upheld by all.”
The president’s decision has been roundly criticized by the 2012 candidates for the Republican nomination. In an April post for the National Review, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney wrote, “It is apparent that our military is engaged in much more than enforcing a no-fly zone. What we are watching in real time is another example of mission creep and mission muddle. In an op-ed in today’s Boston Herald, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton rightly notes that Obama has set himself up for “massive strategic failure” by demanding Qaddafi’s ouster “while restricting military force to the limited objective of protecting civilians.” Military action cannot be under-deliberated and ad hoc. The president owes it to the American people and Congress to immediately explain his new Libya mission and its strategic rationale.”
In a May appearance on Fox News Sunday, Michele Bachmann said, “President Obama’s policy of leading from behind is an outrage and people should be outraged at the foolishness of the President’s decision” and asking “what in the world are we doing in Libya if we don’t know what our military goal is?”
During the Republican Twitter debate Herman Cain wrote, “I’ve said many times before that US intervention in Libya is inappropriate and wrong. The US does not belong in this war…Pres. Obama did not make it clear what our mission was in Libya, what the American interests were or what victory looks like. We cannot risk our treasury or national treasures (brave men & women in uniform) without knowing those answers.”
It turns out they were all wrong. Obama’s foreign policy was correct all along and when it comes to delivering ultimate justice to some of the world’s most dangerous terrorist leaders and sponsors, no Republican can top Barack Obama.
The Republican candidates look like fools today. They are so busy pandering to their base, and criticizing everything that Obama does that they reveal themselves to be completely devoid of strength, and unfit for leadership.
The events in Libya today demonstrate the importance of sound leadership and decision making. Obama led. He took a risk by leading a war fatigued nation into a coalition in a far off land.
President Obama did it because it was the right thing to do. He made sure that our nation stood up for the values of freedom and liberty that our country was founded on. He led in a way that none of the current Republican candidates have the courage to, and he made it obvious why none of the individuals seeking the Republican nomination deserve to be president.
Republicans criticize Obama for being a follower instead of a leader, but the reality is that Obama is leading this nation, while the GOP continues to follow and pander to the far right conservative movement.
Gaddafi is dead. Obama has gotten another one, and the bumbling Republicans look like fools again.
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The teathugs will never never give this president credit for ANYTHING and what more can anyone expect from these mindless,heartless buffons who are just as bad as Gaddafi with their beliefs & desires to take this country down simply because a black man is president but worry me none & evil does not prevail.
Rubio is already saying that Obama did not do it right, that he should have attacked Gaddafi earlier. There is absolutely nothing, nada, that Obama can do right according to the GOP.
Got that right. I’ve said he could hand out free beer and ice cream and the right would find something to bitch about.
That’s two bad guys down do to BO’s intervention…how come I don’t see bumper stickers on pick’em up trucks trumpeting these accomplishments?
You’re right. Obama could find a cure for cancer, aids, alrs and multiple dystrophy, and the repups would say “damn, look at all the dr’s he left jobless and all the hospitals that closed…..he never should have done these things
They will never forgive Obama for 1) beating that old codger with the dingbat running mate (who any white is right person knows should have won NO MATTER WHAT!)and 2)showing up everything Bush did as the dumb things we all said they were. Proving the libs right, all over the place. Bwa-ha-ha,
Stop playing the race card… for crying out loud the guy is just as much white as he is black. He grew up in a place that was so far removed from the Mainland USA and “black communities”, he didn’t even know he was “black” until middle school. I went to Punahou the same time he did, and I will tell you this… it is unlike anything or anyplace on the Mainland. It’s like living in a different country. The student body of the Punahou School in the 60′s & 70′s was primarily white, oriental, hopa (mixed race) and very few black. Praise the guy or hate the guy, I don’t care… just STOP PLAYING THE RACE CARD! It makes you look like a racist.
In my experience, anyone who screams, “Stop playing the race card!” Is usually playing the race card. You, however, may simply have your head up your sandbox.
It’s true that he is half-white, but don’t think for one moment that his detractors care anything about that fact. They have sent racist e-mails to one another about him and his family. There have been racist placards at Tea Party gatherings about him, and he has received more death threats than any other president. What’s really a goofy irony is that they are trying to promote Herman Cain as an alternative to Obama on the Republican side partly on the ridiculous idea that Cain is an “authentic black man” as opposed to the president. THEY have been the ones playing the race card.
1st sarah palin, then Micheal steele, then herman cain.
Its called being followers. Its the best the GOP can do.
SEE? WE GOT ONE TOO!
They always do this because they consistently fail to see that it’s about ideology and not racial or gender identity. They are making the same mistake in touting Cain as their answer to President Obama as they did when they touted Sarah Palin as their answer to Hillary Clinton. Just as most women were not fooled by their selection of Palin, neither will most blacks be fooled by the selection of Cain. Both of these characters have the kinds of ego and mouthiness that have been and will be their undoing.
Although I wish that the race card would not be played in the tenure of his administration, the facts are there. From the New York Times portraying Michelle as a Angela Davis Militant caricature , to coon hunting and watermelon patches growing on the White House lawn ads when he was elected, to the rampant stream of death threats being made on his “black ass”, also the unending barrage of racial slurs and innuendo constantly being aired on television ie Fox News and CSPAN. Last but not least is anyone paying attention to the fact he is not even being addressed as “Mr. President” rather simply Obama!! What is up with that!! There is a huge onslaught of overt and subtle race issues that have been ongoing. It saddens me that with all this we as the intelligent people turn blind eyes to so many examples and still ask the ridiculous question of why people think this is somehow racist!! Come On! What more do you need to open your eyes. This isn’t just politics this a blatant smear campaign and race is a prominent ingredient! Last I want to say whether he is showing his awareness of being bi-racial growing up or not, Im sure growing up what he mastered well was fitting in and masking his feelings to slights. Most minorities know this when facing mainstreams. Most seem to forget there is very little distinction given to someone who is part black. When it is apparent and identifiable, the fact is people look at the black side. A sad but very real truth. If you don’t believe, watch your television a little more closely.. They don’t say the first half black president or even the first Bi-racial. They say simply and matter of fact THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT. So tell me again why race has nothing to do with this???
Get over this. It is NOT a matter of whether he is white or black or half of each. It is a matter of him being PERCEIVED as a black man by most of our country. That, on my word, is the reason he is having such a hard time with the right wing. He is “black” to most Americans and way too many of them have not gotten over the racist attitudes of their parents!
Yep, Obama got another one – another one that the good Christian ril uhMericun bushes never got. And you know what the Dissocialists are going to say? That it’s taqiyah- a diabolically clever dissimulation to lead us into a dictatorship of Sharia law.
Yee’up…Obama’s'a killin’ off all the competition so’s he can be the head dictator of Sharia law…has a nice ring to it, don’t it? I bet Cheney hates being one-upped, by, you know…
I’m sure one of the Goober candidates (or is that Goebbels candidates) will tie all this together and get a “rich” round of applause at the next nice, white, polite people’s candidates debates. The spin-misters are the only ones that have any job security in this country.
LOL.
Dang, Singh, you pegged it. Anyone taking bets on how long it’ll take someone to do it?
A comment to ‘the press’:
Our4thEstate Bobfr
To all idiot #NEWSTAINERS (realize that’s redundant) – it’s not ‘leading from behind’ it is ethical LEADERSHIP, not #NEOCONSTER criminality
A comment to #KOCHMAFIA/#GOPFAIL;
Our4thEstate Bobfr
As #KOCHMAFIA bosses Boehner, Cantor & McConnell try to destroy our economy, #PresObama ends another terrorist/dictator & fights for JOBS.
#PRESSON
And once again, Barack Obama is showing the American Citizens what he is
capable of. And it pisses off many of the Republicans, because they know
that they are losing, & with absolutely nothing to prove that they should
lead the nation, they are making themselves look like a total mockery.
He sure has my vote for 2012!
Wow, it is amazing & sad how much REAL liberals (and conservatives) have been replaced with warmongering neocons…sad indeed that all of you are clamoring for American intervention and the blood of others…I suppose this is the last gasp of the great American experiment and certainly overwhelming proof that there is no more American ‘higher ground’
I didn’t like it, myself. Our country should stop foreign interventionism abroad and use diplomacy if necessary. Just like I didn’t agree with Clinton bombing Bosina(sp), I didn’t agree with Libya.
I disagree that ‘higher ground’ equals pacifism. Pacifism is great when it works, but does it always work? Martyrdom is unquestionably better than self-defence?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_2011_Libyan_civil_war
Wiki shows estimates of fatalities in the thousands before the involvement of NATO. It seems to me that, in certain cases, humanitarian intervention can be the higher ground.
It could be argued that the Libyans are not us, leave them to their fate, whatever it may be, but in my view this is too narrow a view of the human project.
It would seem to require Glenn Beck-style craziness to assert that Obama or NATO with some hidden hand secretly provoked the Libyan protest movement in order to later enjoy the thrill of martial victory.
I do wish Obama had gotten congress to sign on, because it sets a bad precedent, but maybe he could see that the Republicans would have just blocked it (as usual).
The Republicans do seem to be able to turn on a dime from being aggressive war-mongers to the most indifferent non-interventionists.
The President’s speech today was a sober assessment, not some ridiculous glorification of war.
Let us hope that the conservative’s confident predictions that Libya, now deprived of the essential iron fist, will now quickly descend into a nightmare of violent chaos, will prove to be just another untethered fantasy.
I believe most of the right’s indignation is feigned. They are still the same war loving people who want to get those “muslims’, or whoever they perceive as their enemy. They just adamantly refuse to support anything this President accomplishes.
Not to mention his idiot “progressive” critics who have supported Obama’s impeachment over Libya, lied about Libya being the same as Iraq, and all manner of other idiocy.
Just because Libya was successful in killing Gaddafi does not mean that anti-war protesters are “wrong”. What an inane point you made.
@David – that’s great; vote for W’s FOURTH term 8^(
No boots on the ground, no American casualties, approval of both the UN and the Arab League – this is how it’s done. I don’t approve of the President’s assassinations, but I think he did everything right with Libya. However, we can’t overlook the human rights abuses that have taken place and ARE taking place at the hands of the NTC forces, so there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done by both the NTC and the international community.
For the record, had the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq been given the support of the UN and the Arab League, I would have been more likely to approve of them.
Don’t expect any in the GOP to congratulate the President, they did not acknowledge his role in the bringing down Osama Bin Laden and they will not say anything positive about his strategy in Libya. And I’ll bet that the audience in the next debate will cheer any candidate that tries to down play President Obama’s role in Gaddafi’s fall.
Peter King did, although he had to add that it should have happened sooner
Happen sooner?
Obama has only been in office for 3 years, Gaddafi 40 years.
In the meantime:
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
Bush
Clinton
Bush
They didn’t help get it done, Obama did.
Senator Mark Kirk (R Ill) gave thanks to the Obama Administration and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. I am very surprised.
Rep. Leonard Lance (R NJ) also gave credit to the Obama Administration and Sec. Clinton.
@Joel You must be confused if you can’t tell the difference between Bush’s “neocon send 150000 troops in alone, screw up world opinion of US, kill 4500 Americans” vs POTUS’s nuanced get the job done approach, respect around the world. I would suggest you try to learn the difference.
sheesh, it used to be that you could depend on liberals to speak up against the warmongers – now it seems that the liberals ARE the warmongers.
Sad day indeed
Every liberal is not a pacifist.
Damn straight. In my view, anyone who has his troops take Viagra so they can rape his countrywomen in front of their families deserves an ugly death, and Ghaddafi died one.
Yep, sometimes we are. Liberal does not mean lay down and get sacrificed. We have to defend ourselves and help those who cannot help themselves in this world. Justice won again, today.
I thought all of you proud liberals were in love with FDR, JFK and LBJ. Please tell me were these presidents warmongers?
Your point?
Exactly. That is the talking POINT the cons have sent to the their mouthpieces today. Pretty sad, indeed.
While I have problems celebrating anyones death I do see that the evil that this man has done has returned to him in the form of a violent death. I don’t believe that you can say Libs are “warmongers.” If a Pres. Bush were in office they would be a day of celebration and constant news breaks citing every word a Bush president would say. Since Obama took the lead from “behind” no one will give him credit for any U.S. involvement. This wasn’t just the death of one man but the death of a cruel, maleviolent dynasty. With saying that I say congratulations to our President for helping end this wicked tyranny.
Sen. Lindsay Graham’s comment couldn’t have come on a better day. he blasts his colleagues in Congress for playing politics over the Libyan intervention and makes it clear that the opposition and threats of using the War Powers Act was done only because Obama is the current president. Pay particular notice to the emerging GOP talking point at the end of the excerpt. They have to say something to cover for their embarrassing, and failed, foreign policy strategies under GWB.
“I’m very disappointed in Congress,” said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Congress took an irrational view of the War Powers Act. I guarantee you that a lot Republicans who wanted the War Power Act invoked would not have asked for it to be invoked if President Obama were not president. To me, national security should be as bipartisan as possible.”
“The world is changing around us,” Graham continued. “There’s a revolutionary changing around us. There’s a revolutionary change in the Middle East where women are driving in Saudi Arabia, Gadhafi is dead, Syria is on the ropes. We need to get involved, they’re about to have their first free and fair, I hope, election in 6,000 years in Egypt.”
Still, Graham said he thought Obama made a mistake by “leading from behind.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/20/127842/lindsey-graham-says-gop-opposed.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=news
This is great. Obama is the man! As a liberal, what I’d like to see now is Obama raiding some GOP debate with a strikeforce and executing all the GOP candidates through the back of the head on live TV, then putting all of the capitalist audience members in a work camp!
Hopefully O follows through and disallows the 2012 election for the people’s good, and then sends out forces to round up Repugs and other terrorists and make them all go to work camps! Then, as a liberal, I’d like to see him quintuple the military budget and execute leaders everywhere who refuse turn over all industry to the state and provide universal health care and free educations for everyone and free pet training for those of us who have dogs and cats.
This is great! A stone cold mass murderer, and now an ace hit man! What else could we liberals want?
Very funny. Nonetheless, if I were a Republican, prudence would dictate I treat him with the respect hitherto considered customary towards Presidents.
Obama truly has shown he has the guts to take out the bad guys, from Somali pirates to heads of countries. I hope he sets his deadly sights on the many other African didtators that keep democracy from that beleaguered land.
I would prefer he first set his sights on the dictatorships in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida.
WELL-said, Reynardine! What is happening right, here, in the USA is abominable, and is NOT getting adequate direct and outraged reaction from the MEDIA, who are not calling out the right-wing politicians for the harm they are doing to what WAS working, all along, in the country. Nor is the media calling them out on their hypocritical lies! Fact-checking. Whatever happened to fact checking?
Speaking of working . . . ALL of the Republicans have been clamoring about (and running and/or winning elections on) “Where are the JOBS?”
Yet, what the mainstream MEDIA, again, fails to headline is the utter hypocrisy of that, when all THEY (the Repubs) have done is OBSTRUCT absolutely EVERY single thing the President and the Senate (with a Democratic majority) have attempted to DO! WHY has the press not turned this back (in a VERY big way) on them, asking the REPUBLICANS where, exactly, is THEIR JOBS PLAN???
Instead, Republicans unanimously shot down the President’s VERY workable, realistic and RAPID RESULTS jobs plan, that would have meant hundreds of thousands of NEW jobs relatively QUICKLY, while at the same time, would have addressed the shameful (and extremely hazardous) condition of our crumbling infrastructure? The best the Repubs have offered is TAX BREAKS (again!) for corporations bringing manufacturing jobs back to this country (which, if it DID happen, wouldn’t create new jobs for years, yet). They also conveniently cry “NO MORE TAXES” taxes on the JOB CREATORS, when history shows that, as under Reagan, when the top tier of incomes were taxed at their highest rates, employment rates went UP. Hmmmmm….
Ironically, while they are firing up the lemming-like right-wing Tea Party supporters, by (FALSELY) claiming the President is RAISNG their taxes, tax rates have been and are being reduced to the lowest rates in nearly 60 years FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS! It is nothing short of hypocrisy that they have their followers chanting NOT MORE TAX HIKES, when the very people doing that, with their shout-outs at meetings and rallies, don’t seem to GET it that THEIR taxes HAVE been LOWERED — that it’s the top 1% whose taxes the President wants just to RESTORE TO THEIR ORIGINAL RATE.
WHY doesn’t the MAINSTREAM MEDIA (not just MSNBC and sites like this, but ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.) call the Republicans out on this? That it wasn’t until GW Bush’s REDUCTION in the top-tier tax rate, that jobs began to DISAPPEAR? If tax cuts on the wealthiest, WORKED, the years leading UP to President Obama would have brought prosperity to workers, not disastrous unemployment.
Aside — among the very wealthiest, are the hedge-fund managers, entertainment and sports celebrities, and of course, a huge percentage of the REPUBLICAN office holders and seekers.
Last count, how many jobs have any of THESE PEOPLE created?
Is ANYONE listening?
Revenue. This country needs increased streams of REVENUE. And the Repubs have staked EVERYTHING on making sure they and their mega-wealthy benefactors don’t have to give up their current reduced tax rate of 35% (a 4% cut given them by the BUSH administration) and simply return to the rate which even Republican presidents approved, that historically was 39%?
Hello? Ending a tax reduction and returning to historic rates is NOT RAISING any taxes — it is taking back a huge cut that was given them, in preferential treatment, by our previous REPUBLICAN president — who, BTW, approved the deregulation of banks which lead to the housing collapse that got us INTO this mess.
WHY isn’t there more pressure on the mainstream press to EXPOSE THE REPUBLICANS (BEFORE they destroy this country? And, WHAT, exactly, do their moral-agenda politics have to do with JOBS???? I dunno — last time I checked, Planned Parenthood wasn’t causing job loss or economic failure of the nation. Whatever happened to separation of church and state, as in the U.S. Constitution, which the RIGHT so proudly claims to stand on??
One last thought: HOW is it that so many major countries of the WORLD are in economic chaos, which is rapidly worsening, yet, the REPUBLICANS somehow continue to get away with making it look like it was PRESIDENT OBAMA who brought the country to its financial knees — and hasn’t FIXED it yet??? Are there no major players in the MAINSTREAM media who will broach this glaring hypocrisy???
Exactly, Jason..”It was the right thing to do so he did it.” Thank you.
As another writer said..”it was an enormous risk” but that didn’t stop him from acting. I read that SOS Clinton and others helped him see it.
Gaddafi’s gone..thanks to a world coalition helping the rebels(those who had had it with the suffering under that dic). The profiteering left will be whining and crying for Gaddafi and the corporatemediawhore$$ will make sure somehow PBO looks bad. They’re all so freaking predictable.
Well, if President Obama can do this with the courage of his convictions.
We now know why he can’t do it in America. Its called Congress.
The party of NO. They couldn’t intervene is his decisions.Team work.
I don’t celebrate anyone’s killing, but an immensely evil man is no longer able to torment and torture his fellow Libyans. I like the fact that the president worked in conjunction with other countries and with the Libyans themselves to bring Gaddifi down with no loss of American lives. The Party of No has always underestimated this president and tried to fit him into their skewed narrative about Democrats being “soft on terrorism.” With a few exceptions, they will never give him credit partly because they are still seething with anger and disbelief that they lost the White House in 2008.
MOST liberals are not pacifists. We’re against stupid, pointless, and costly wars with unesasary The President wisely chose the nuanced high road on this. However, if some entity attacks us and the choice is fight or lose our liberty and freedom, we ( liberals )get the job done. As the late great George Carlin once said, “pacifism is a nice idea but It’ll get ya killed!”
This is a distorted myth of the left that the right wing nut jobs perpetuate. My dad was a straight up FDR and JFK liberal democrat ( My parents had me later in life )and he and my mom were very active in the civil rights movement. He fought and put his life on the line for his country in two wars. He was the toughest, most fearless guy that I knew.
That’s why it honks me off to no end when I here one of these Republican tools shooting off their mouth about liberals being wimps. This is the first clue that these guys aren’t tough. I mean c’mon… Sean? Rush? Billy boy? What a bunch of pussies!
oops. misspelled unnecessary.
Well said.
My Parents taught me to be a good Democrat. My Father fought in the South Pacific WWII, and he is the best liberal I know.
Hell yeah, Moongal6! Men like our fathers literally saved the world. Hopefully we can return at least a little of the favor come the 2012 election.
Your parents sound great, Johnee..
All republicons have are their big lyin’ mouths and Democrats get out there and actually do something progressive. PBO has dispelled their myth that we’re soft on terror or not strong on National Security.
The biggest blunder on National Security ever came when the republicon george bush jr and the dick cheney were in charge on 9/11/01.
And, then the idiots went after the wrong asshole. But, Obama took care of that when he gave the order for the Navy Seals to take out bin laden. Cleaned up after Reagan, too.
Yeah, I’m not a pacifist but I do believe in reality and going after what is the target that’s dangerous to our well being and not lying your ass off to get us to bomb Iraq with the aid and abetting of the US corporatemediawhore$$$.. and I’m talking about the Planet here as well as America.
[...] of the Republican Party can’t put their partisanship aside for one day and acknowledge that President Obama was correct on Libya, it proves that Republicans are permanently putting politics ahead of country. The same people who [...]
You can keep whistling past the ballot box, homies, but it ain’t working.
The prog agenda has been overwhelmingly refudiated.
Sorry about your luck…
Ok we will put you down as being in approval of corruption and a ton of other things the banks are doing.
I am a true believer of the truth coming out in the end