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The Spectacle Blog
The relative silence of the anti-war Left about President Obama’s commitment of U.S. forces to military action against Moammar Qaddafi’s regime — noted previously by John Guardiano — has at least two prominent exceptions. Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore was nearly apoplectic on Twitter yesterday:
It’s only cause we’re defending the Libyan people from a tyrant! That’s why we bombed the Saudis last wk! Hahaha. Pentagon=comedy
And we always follow the French’s lead! Next thing you know, we’ll have free health care & free college! Yay war!
We’ve had a “no-fly zone” over Afghanistan for over 9 yrs. How’s that going? #WINNING !
Khadaffy must’ve planned 9/11! #excuses
Khadaffy must’ve had WMD! #excusesthatwork
So give Moore credit, at least, for being consistently wacko. We might say the same for Andrew Sullivan:
I supported Obama against first Clinton and then McCain because I knew full well that both Clinton and McCain were unrepentant fans of presidential war-making powers and had both supported almost every war in their political lives. I wanted someone with more restraint… .
It’s just brutal to have supported Obama’s foreign policy for so long, only to see it morph into a multilateral version of McCain’s so swiftly. The whiplash is jarring.
The jarring whiplash involved this December 2007 quote from then-candidate Obama:
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
While at least these two Obamaphiles have admitted that this isn’t the Change they voted for, there is certainly nothing comparable to the “impeach-the-neocon-warmonger” furor we saw against Bush, as my blogger friend the Rhetorican noted:
What’s missing? The ubiquitous sense of outrage in every nook and cranny of Leftie-dom that we couldn’t stop hearing back in 2003, before troops even started packing for Iraq.
To which observation I replied:
True: The outrage is not “ubiquitous,” but what are lefties like Michael Moore going to do? They got nowhere to go. They backed the most left-wing nominee in the Democratic Party’s history — yes, Obama is further left than McGovern or Dukakis — and actually managed to get him elected. And the result is … ??
We’re still in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guantanamo is still in business. Bradley Manning is stripped naked in solitary confinement. Now, another military adventure. You’d think that people who’d been so blatantly screwed over, bamboozled, sold out, ripped off and stabbed in the back would eventually wise up.
But then again: They’re liberals.
Randall Jarrell once observed of liberals in the 1950s that “they would have swallowed a porcupine, if you had dyed its quills and called it Modern Art.” Now we see that most of the anti-war Left will swallow even war, if you call it Human Rights — and the president who wages it is a Democrat.
View all comments (30) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Robert Stacy McCain
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/03/20/obama-libya-and-the-left
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Michael L. Hauschild| 3.20.11 @ 1:16PM
I think this organization of the Obama coalition attack on Libya will work out. Missile strikes from the beaches of Rio are well within the capability of our military, the no-fly zone established by the French should hold seeing it is really hard to surrender from the cockpit of an airplane, and the targeting logistics will be successful due to the fact that no matter who or where you drop ordinance it will hit a jihadist and enemy of the United States. Win-win-win.
Timothy L. Pennell| 3.21.11 @ 10:51AM
It's like OPPOSITE DAY, every day, when the Democrats are in Power.
Remember that Senator from Washington State (or was it Oregon) who was giving "Unwanted KISSES and HUGS, to a coupla women? Remember? The DEMOCRAT Women, in the House, marched over to the Senate, and DEMANDED HIS RESIGNATION.
When Bill Clinton had to testify before a Grand Jury, because he pulled his pants down, and EXPOSED himself to a woman he didn't even know? When he was using an INTERN as a Cigar Humidor and a DNA Collector? When he was being accused of RAPE, on National Television, in Prime Time, on the #1 Show in the Country? When he was accused by ANOTHER WOMAN, of groping her Breasts and rubbing up against her, on that SAME SHOW?
The Democrats couldn't have cared less. "It's his PRIVATE LIFE", don'tcha know.
When BILL CLINTON and AL GORE and JOHN KERRY and MADELINE ALBRIGHT, all said that Saddam Hussein had WMD? It was GOSPEL.
When George W. Bush, said the same thing? He LIED.
When Bush was President, all we heard was: "WHERE"S OSAMA BIN LADEN." We don't hear that anymore.
All we saw on television was the DAILY DEATH COUNT of U.S. Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don't see that anymore.
And we watched as the Media became excited at the impending MILESTONE Number. They don't do that anymore.
Deficits used to be BAD. Now, they're not big ENOUGH.
Going on VACATION, PLAYING GOLF and THROWING LAVISH PARTIES, while we're fighting two WARS, while the GULF is inundated in OIL, and while the whole world BURNS, is back in Vogue.
Nice, huh?
Happy Opposite Day.
Happy End of our LIVES, as we know it.
Oldefarte| 3.20.11 @ 1:19PM
Good one, Bob, as usual! Wish McMullen would order Moore, Sheen, Bahar, Streisand, Winfrey, Pilosi, Reid, and a few others to be loaded onto a C-47 destined for Tripoli and thereafter deposited; but that no doubt would be simply TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR!!!!!!!!!
Roy| 3.20.11 @ 3:36PM
They really don't care about foreign policy. It was a convenient stick with which to beat Bush, but what they really care about is that unborn infants continue to be vivisected.
Kingofthenet| 3.20.11 @ 4:00PM
We lefties 'Save' our furor for President's who PURPOSELY Lie to us, so where are all Iraqi WMD's and mobile Bio Labs?
Skippy| 3.20.11 @ 4:58PM
In Syria where they have been since autumn 2002.
But you knew that!
The rest of us don't care about the WMD's now, and we didn't then.
We wanted Sadaam out and Iraq crushed, and all the other Arab sewers shaken to their core.
That way ather Arabs could see what life looks like w/o scum-monkeys running their lives, and perhaps throw off the chains of their servitude.
Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia, Yemen, Iran...
Mission accomplished!
Thank you, GWB.
Jonah| 3.20.11 @ 5:35PM
Your gratitude is a little premature--we have no idea if the Libyan rebels are any better than Qaddafi. They could be much worse.
C Bowen| 3.20.11 @ 5:54PM
Skippy is a good example of a traitorcon.
A.M. Mallett| 3.20.11 @ 6:13PM
They are in Syria.
NoLib| 3.20.11 @ 11:30PM
Why didn't GWB bring more attention to this fact? I never could understand his silence on this matter.
C Bowen| 3.21.11 @ 2:43PM
Are you privy to secret info? Get it to Don Rumsfeld ASAP so he can include it in his next book.
NoLib| 3.21.11 @ 6:34PM
It wasn't secret; I remember reading about it in 2003--4. Hussein had wmds shipped to the Bekaa valley before GWB attacked Iraq.
You don't question much do you?
Eric Cartman| 3.21.11 @ 9:48AM
Can't you just hear Kingofthnuts? "Bush PURPOSELY lied us into WAR so HALIBURTON could win NO BID CONTRACTS for the LAUNDRY concessions in IRAQ! That's the difference! We lefties "Save" (quotes inserted for no reason) our furor for that! You NEOCONS spent all our money on Iraq so I can't get free health care for my lazy, Lefty ass!"
Can't you just see him melting down as his Socialist dreams are being torn apart bit by bit? Too funny.
Occam's Tool| 3.21.11 @ 10:51AM
Dear Eric:
Yes, "yummy, yummy tears."
Eric Cartman| 3.21.11 @ 9:26PM
Mmmmm! Salty tears! lol ;-)
Chris | 3.20.11 @ 4:40PM
While it is amusing to see lefts stew in the juicy hypocrisies of their own making, it's clear to me that the solution to endless war and government over-regulation is joining up with the paleo+libertarian alliance advocated by the likes of Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. The GOP can't be trusted with foreign misadventures and the Dems have no issue tax and spending us into oblivion.
Jonah| 3.20.11 @ 5:39PM
I agree. I see little difference between RINOs and Leftists: RINOs overspend on overly agressive foreign policy and Leftists overspend on victimhood domestic policy. The combination of the two has left us bankrupt.
Floyd Looney | 3.20.11 @ 6:31PM
There were some anti-war protesters arrested in front of the White House.... oh wait, they were protesting the anniversary of the Iraq war. Apparently they had little to say about the rush to war in Libya.
Debra| 3.20.11 @ 6:33PM
Isn't this the same Qaddafi that cringed and gave up his nuclear plans when he saw that Bush was determined to oust Saddam? Now all he sees is a pantywaist president whose only ambition is to take his family on a world wide vacation at the taxpayer's expense, play golf and bow down to Muslim leaders. He sees no deterrent here to stop him.
yappy| 3.20.11 @ 7:12PM
On "unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" the US involvement was absolutely not that....it came from 10 nations passing the UN Security Council Resolution.
LiveFreeOrDie| 3.21.11 @ 11:44AM
NO! He UNILATERALLY decided to involve the United States. The UN is a non-elected body that does not represent or have any jurisdiction or power over the United States. ANYTHING the UN decided is 100% irrelevant.
Obama decided OUR involvement with no congressional approval, no consortium and not even so much as a debate. But, he's a liberal-puke-marxist-moron so he gets the usual pass.
Rowdy Boots| 3.20.11 @ 8:49PM
The one consistency in Liberal People is that they will become violent if you disagree with them too strongly that violence is never a good thing.
FOOLS ALL
MarkJ| 3.20.11 @ 10:33PM
Rowdy Boots,
"What's the most important thing you should take to a leftist "peace demonstration"?
"A flak jacket."
NoLib| 3.20.11 @ 11:35PM
...pepper spray. Lots of it.
randellpope| 3.21.11 @ 6:54AM
The first new rule says you HAVE to have insurance. Both my husband and I have pre-existing conditions, and although the new bill says we can't be denied coverage because of it. So far, the cheapest health insurance we've been able to find is called "Wise Medical Insurance" search for it online if you are pre-existing conditions.
Prester john| 3.21.11 @ 7:54AM
When I checked last night there was not a single word about Libya on the moveon.org home page.
But don't worry, I washed my hands afterwards.
Ellis Wyatt| 3.21.11 @ 8:45AM
The left is boxed in on this one. At least Bush had congressional approval for Iraq. Look for a quiet week in the media reporting on the Obama's vacation in Brazil.
Occam's Tool| 3.21.11 @ 10:50AM
Randall Jarrell: The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner (or, how even in the most appropriate war ever fought, the State still treats its people like a piece of shit):
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Wayne | 3.21.11 @ 5:47PM
The right has also been very quiet about this. My guess they are conflicted because of the sell out to neo-cons. At the very least the GOP needs to demand and immediate halt to any act of war until Congress approves the action.
We have become addicted to being the policeman of the world. I am afraid that more of this crap will follow, with looser and looser justification.
Wake up conservatives and recognize what Obama is doing.
No Soap-Boxes| 3.21.11 @ 6:38PM
I'm so damn tired of lectures. Who the hell do you think you are?