What’d I Say?

Posted on by

My predictions from this morning are coming true. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) thanks France and argues that the death of Qaddafi shows that President Obama is leading from behind.

“Today’s not a day to point fingers,” the right-wing Florida senator said. “I’m glad it’s all working out. Ultimately this is about the freedom and liberty of the Libyan people. But let’s give credit where credit is due: it’s the French and the British that led in this fight, and probably even led on the strike that led to Gadhafi’s capture, and, or, you know, to his death.

“So, that’s the first thing. The second thing is, you know, I criticize the president, for, he did the right things, he just took too long to do it and didn’t do enough of it.”

And …

McCain appeared on CNN this morning and said, “I think the [Obama] administration deserves credit, but I especially appreciate the leadership of the British and French in this in carrying out this success.”

Unreal. But to be fair, McCain also said “I think the administration deserves great credit.”

Mark Landler and David Leonhardt have a different take in the New York Times:

The death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is the latest victory for a new American approach to war: few if any troops on the ground, the heavy use of air power, including drones and, at least in the case of Libya, a reliance on allies.

Only a few months ago, the approach had few fans: not the hawks in Congress who called for boots on the ground, not the doves who demanded a pullout and not the many experts who warned of a quagmire. Most pointedly, critics mocked President Obama for “leading from behind,” a much-repeated phrase that came from an unnamed administration official in an article in The New Yorker.

But the last six months have brought a string of successes. In May, American commandos killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. In August, Tripoli fell, and Colonel Qaddafi fled. In September, an American drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a top Qaeda operative and propagandist, in Yemen. And on Thursday, people were digesting images of the bloodied body of Colonel Qaddafi, an oppressive strongman who spent decades flaunting his pariah status.

Get this —

Senator Mark Steven Kirk, Republican of Illinois, added, in a statement, referring to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, “The administration, especially Secretary Clinton, deserve our congratulations.”

It’s like their lips would fall off if they said anything nice about President Obama. Of course, primary credit should go to Egyptians, I would think.

10 thoughts on “What’d I Say?”

  1. Yes, Senator Kirk, you’ve finally caught on to what all of us should have known for decades, and thanks for letting us know – it’s the Sect.’s of State who call in air strikes, and military affairs like this.

    It’s too bad Colin Powell was such a pussy and didn’t have the cojones that Hillary did in handling Mubarak, bin Laden, and Quadaffi.

    Oy!
    ‘Teh Stupid’ burns like a thousand suns!!!
    But, of course there are no thousand other suns.
    They are all merely God’s shiny spots on wallpaper to fool us about His majesty as the Sun slowly circles the Earth.

  3. “So, that’s the first thing. The second thing is, you know, I criticize the president, for, he did the right things, he just took too long to do it and didn’t do enough of it.”

    Okay, is it me, or does that say, almost verbatim, “I criticize the President, because while I can’t find any specific fault with his actions, he’s still wrong”?

    Do professional journalists learn to take down quotes like that without their jaws dropping? (If so, is that a *good* thing?)

  7. “primary credit should go to Egyptians” No, I think primary credit should go to the Tunisians. They were the ones that started this whole “Arab Spring” thing.

    And speaking of Sen Rubio, I read where his parents were not ‘refugees’ from Castro’s Cuba, but came to the States in 1956.

  8. This is not really a new American approach to war. It is the same approach that George H.W. Bush used during the first Gulf War 20 years ago (if drone technology had existed at the time, they would have been heavily used).

    • It is the same approach that George H.W. Bush used during the first Gulf War 20 years ago

      Not at all. The Gulf War involved U.S. troops on the ground and much of the weight of the U.S. military short of nuclear weapons. They even took the battleship Missouri out of mothballs and let it fire its guns one more time, although I suspect that was mostly for the nostalgia of the thing. The U.S. also played a much more visible leadership role in the Gulf War.

  9. Rubio is a big a fraud as the rest of them. Now that he’s completed his hajj to the Reagan library he seems to be getting more assertive in issuing nonsensical conservative statements.

Comments are closed.