My goal is for 'ol Mummy's last sight to be a Tomahawk coming at him with "Payback: it's a bitch, innit?" written on the warhead. Go get him Mr. President. Only, could you do it a little more competently? Goldberg:
Yes, yes, Obama has managed to cock-up this war kinetic action "time-limited, scope-limited military action."
In fact, he's such a killjoy, he's actually taken the fun out of trying to get rid of Moammar Qaddafi. Moammar Qaddafi!
He's like a guy trying to seduce a woman while insisting that they partake in "kinetic sexual activity" as per the guidelines of the campus committee on romantic congress. (Actually, I think "Kinetic Military Action" is what Bill Murray got in that chest at General Barnicke's house in Stripes.).
Still, I worry that the Right's reaction may come back to haunt us. First of all, it's quite possible that Qaddafi is gone inside a couple weeks (I'm not saying it's likely, just that it is well within the realm of possibility). All of the protests about the lack of a rationale, the failure to get congressional approval, the subordination of our national security to the U.N., etc., could seem tinny and small if this ends well and relatively quickly.
Obviously, that alone doesn't detract from the merits of many (though not all) criticisms. But does the Right really want to erase the commander-in-chief's prerogative to take out mad dogs like Moammar when the opportunity arises? I mean, this isn't like taking out some African dictator. Qaddafi's crimes against the U.S. are well known. And there should be no statute of limitations for them. Do we really want to forgive and forget all of that?
To listen to some of my friends, the answer seems to be, "Yes."
But I'm not so sure this is all about spiting Obama. I think some of us may be exhibiting a delayed backlash against the Iraq War and exhaustion with the Afghan conflict. The Right tolerated mistakes, misjudgments, and staggering military expenditures under Bush in pursuit of a vastly more ambitious agenda. Now, when Obama undertakes a considerably more modest undertaking -- albeit in a decidedly annoying and incoherent fashion -- many conservatives shout "Enough!"
As I've written many times, I think something similar explains the tea parties. They, too, are a kind of delayed Bush backlash. But there's a key difference. Yes, Bush was a big spender and an expander of government, but he was a piker compared to Obama. To mirror what he has done on the domestic front, Obama would need to be announcing a full-scale invasion of Australia.
Beware the Hypocrisy Trap
There's a natural tendency in politics to adopt your opponents' lowest standards as your own. For example, the Left has spent much of the last decade insisting that conservatives are sleazy, slanderous, dishonest, and mercenary and then -- often in the same breath -- they'll say liberals need to adopt the very same tactics. Recently, many folks on the right have been sounding very similar. We need to use Alinskyite methods to fight the Alinskyites!
This, in a nutshell, is the hypocrisy trap. Yes, liberals are hypocrites for not shouting "Chickenhawk!" at Obama. But conservatives would be just as hypocritical for shouting "Chickenhawk!" at Obama. More to the point, the argument over the proper application of the term "chickenhawk" completely leaves out the question of whether the underlying policy was wrong or right. FDR was a chickenhawk, World War II was good policy. Remember?
Again, it is very difficult to make this point about Obama's policy because it is entirely unclear that he has one. But amidst all of the shouting, it's worth keeping in mind.
The Big If
Now, all of that is completely moot and stupid if the real goal of this enterprise doesn't involve killing or exiling Qaddafi. If we don't get rid of him, it will be a colossal error for which we will pay a terrible price for years to come. On this I am totally with Adam Garfinkle:
In fact, he's such a killjoy, he's actually taken the fun out of trying to get rid of Moammar Qaddafi. Moammar Qaddafi!
He's like a guy trying to seduce a woman while insisting that they partake in "kinetic sexual activity" as per the guidelines of the campus committee on romantic congress. (Actually, I think "Kinetic Military Action" is what Bill Murray got in that chest at General Barnicke's house in Stripes.).
Still, I worry that the Right's reaction may come back to haunt us. First of all, it's quite possible that Qaddafi is gone inside a couple weeks (I'm not saying it's likely, just that it is well within the realm of possibility). All of the protests about the lack of a rationale, the failure to get congressional approval, the subordination of our national security to the U.N., etc., could seem tinny and small if this ends well and relatively quickly.
Obviously, that alone doesn't detract from the merits of many (though not all) criticisms. But does the Right really want to erase the commander-in-chief's prerogative to take out mad dogs like Moammar when the opportunity arises? I mean, this isn't like taking out some African dictator. Qaddafi's crimes against the U.S. are well known. And there should be no statute of limitations for them. Do we really want to forgive and forget all of that?
To listen to some of my friends, the answer seems to be, "Yes."
But I'm not so sure this is all about spiting Obama. I think some of us may be exhibiting a delayed backlash against the Iraq War and exhaustion with the Afghan conflict. The Right tolerated mistakes, misjudgments, and staggering military expenditures under Bush in pursuit of a vastly more ambitious agenda. Now, when Obama undertakes a considerably more modest undertaking -- albeit in a decidedly annoying and incoherent fashion -- many conservatives shout "Enough!"
As I've written many times, I think something similar explains the tea parties. They, too, are a kind of delayed Bush backlash. But there's a key difference. Yes, Bush was a big spender and an expander of government, but he was a piker compared to Obama. To mirror what he has done on the domestic front, Obama would need to be announcing a full-scale invasion of Australia.
Beware the Hypocrisy Trap
There's a natural tendency in politics to adopt your opponents' lowest standards as your own. For example, the Left has spent much of the last decade insisting that conservatives are sleazy, slanderous, dishonest, and mercenary and then -- often in the same breath -- they'll say liberals need to adopt the very same tactics. Recently, many folks on the right have been sounding very similar. We need to use Alinskyite methods to fight the Alinskyites!
This, in a nutshell, is the hypocrisy trap. Yes, liberals are hypocrites for not shouting "Chickenhawk!" at Obama. But conservatives would be just as hypocritical for shouting "Chickenhawk!" at Obama. More to the point, the argument over the proper application of the term "chickenhawk" completely leaves out the question of whether the underlying policy was wrong or right. FDR was a chickenhawk, World War II was good policy. Remember?
Again, it is very difficult to make this point about Obama's policy because it is entirely unclear that he has one. But amidst all of the shouting, it's worth keeping in mind.
The Big If
Now, all of that is completely moot and stupid if the real goal of this enterprise doesn't involve killing or exiling Qaddafi. If we don't get rid of him, it will be a colossal error for which we will pay a terrible price for years to come. On this I am totally with Adam Garfinkle:
As I have said, a Qaddafi left armed and dangerous when the dust settles is an unacceptable outcome. Civilian planes will likely start failing out the sky, as did the one over Lockerbie; assassination attempts will multiply, like the attempted Libyan-backed murder of the Saudi king in 2003; al-Qaeda and affiliates might be aided and abetted to do Lord-knows-what to the Italians, the French, the British and, of course, to us. With nothing to lose, and way beyond the threshold of worrying about sanctions and such, Qaddafi could well become more dangerous than ever. If I were Silvio Berlusconi, in particular, I'd pick my future whorehouses with extreme care.
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