The Fox News neocon had his Obamagasm during the speech last night, when Obama started justifying his reasons for the unconstitutional attack on Libya. Yes, we are talking about the same Obama who has taken away the right to choose if you want healthcare or not giving the IRS the power to penalize you if you don't comply. Yes, we are talking about the same Obama who is now bypassing Congress when he doesn't get his way on cap and trade. Yes, we are talking about the same Obama who recently launched his war against the Second Amendment. Mr. Kristol has gone over the edge celebrating this unconstitutional attack while ignoring the obvious. Obama doesn't care about your freedom, nor does he care about the freedom of those people in Libya.
Kristol celebrates the speech describing it as American goodness. There was a time when America stalled to enter wars and did what they could to prevent war. Now we start them like its no big deal, while describing those who started war as evil. I wouldn't call this American goodness Mr. Kristol.
I knew pretty early on during tonight’s speech that President Obama had rejoined—or joined—the historical American foreign policy mainstream. It was when he mentioned Charlotte (the city, not the spider):
At this point, the United States and the world faced a choice. Gaddafi declared that he would show “no mercy” to his own people. He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we had seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day. Now, we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi – a city nearly the size of Charlotte – could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.
When American presidents want to justify foreign interventions, and are worried the American people aren’t quite with them, they often reach for a strained analogy or comparison that will bring the situation abroad home to their fellow Americans watching on the tube. Obama’s awkward interjection explaining that Benghazi is “a city nearly the size of Charlotte” is a classic of the genre. As Obama said it, I recalled Reagan explaining Nicaragua was as near to Texas as Texas to Washington, D.C., or some such thing, and similar clunky and earnest attempts at homespun appeals by George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. I found this reassuring.
As I found the rest of the speech. The president was unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing, and didn’t shrink from defending the use of force or from appealing to American values and interests. Furthermore, the president seems to understand we have to win in Libya. I think we will.
