Tag: Libya

Sullivan: Romney’s Mishandling of Murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Is More Proof He Is ‘Unfit for Government’

Jon Ponder

Andrew Sullivan:

The obvious responsible thing to do when American citizens and public officials are under physical threat abroad and when the details are unknown, and events spiraling, is to stay silent. If the event happens on the day of September 11 and you are a candidate for president and have observed a political truce, all the more reason to wait to allow the facts to emerge. After all, country before party, right? American lives are at stake, yes? An easy call, no?

But that’s not what the Romney camp did. What they did was seize on a tweet issued by someone in the US Embassy before the attacks in order to indict the president for “sympathizing” with those who murdered a US ambassador after the attacks. Unfuckingbelievable.

Top Republicans on Libya: ‘Failure of the U.S. to Employ the Full Weight of Our Air Power’ Is Regrettable

Jon Ponder

For this week’s example of the political degeneracy of the Republican Party in the Obama era, we nominate this damning-with-faint-praise statement of congratulations to the United States military in the wake of Libyan rebels seizing the capitol city of Tripoli, released under the names of two soulless ideologues in the Senate, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina:

“We regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower,” the senators wrote in a joint statement. (Emphasis added.)

As MSNBC substitute host Melissa Harris Perry said on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” last night, it is odd to hear the word “failure” in a statement of congratulations to the United States military from Republican senators.

Of course, what is really going here is politics. McCain, the failed Republican presidential nominee, and Graham, his Mini-Me, put out the statement in an effort to tamp down Americans’ natural impulse to “rally ’round the flag” and support the president in the wake of U.S. military successes.

But in their desperation to prevent the president’s approval rating on foreign affairs from bumping up a point or two, they also backhanded the U.S. military by describing it’s efforts as a “failure.”

Lucky for McCain and Graham they are Republican neocon war hawks, which means the corporate media will give them a pass on besmirching the military. If Democratic senators had released a statement using the word “failure” to describe a military action, there would be a raging debate on “Morning Joe” and “Fox and Friends” about whether they were giving aid and comfort to America’s terrorist enemies.

Our Perennial, Predictable Surprise* at Unintended Consequences

Trish

I stumbled on this video (thank you, K.Q.) after reading Buck’s recent posts on new deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, along with other authors writing about man-made disasters.

Camp makes an excellent point. We think these things up, but we never plan adequately for the downside.

*Yes, that was an intentional oxymoron.

Democrats Opted Not to Impeach Reagan After He Failed to Consult Congress before Invading Grenada in 1983

Jon Ponder

There they go again. The drumbeat on the right for impeaching Pres. Obama is reaching a feverish pitch.

The GOP put impeaching the president on the table last summer, even before it was a cinch they would retake the House in November. Over at the birtherist site, World Nut Daily, they even published a book listing putative impeachable offenses against the president titled, “The Case for Impeachment: Why Barack Hussein Obama Should be Impeached to Save America.” One notable offense in the book: The president, or someone at the White House, reportedly allowed pop stars Beyonce and Jay-Z to have their photographs taken in the White House Situation Room.

Then, as the midterms drew near, Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who would chair the House Oversight Committee, where impeachment investigations usually originate, described the president to Rush Limbaugh as “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times” and announced that he would increase the size of the committee’s staff. (Issa, who should know from corruption — he’s a suspected arsonist and was charged with grand theft auto in 1980 — later tried to walk back his characterization of the president.)

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., the history-challenged prospective GOP presidential candidate, also piled on, suggesting that if Republicans gained control of Congress, they should forget governing and do nothing but investigate the president. “Oh, I think that’s all we should do,” she said. “I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another. And expose all the nonsense that is going on. And it’s very important when we come back that we have constitutional conservative leadership because the American people’s patience is about this big.”

Now, in the wake of Pres. Obama’s order last Friday to bomb Libya in preparation for establishing a no-fly zone, right-wing radio talkers and others on GOP propaganda outlets are clamoring once again for impeachment. Critics of the president charge that he violated the War Powers Clause by initiating the bombing without first seeking approval of Congress.

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