Obama and Libya: What Happens When the “Chief” Has Never Commanded Anything

Beldar has an excellent comparison of the performance of our Prevaricator in Chief and that of George H.W. Bush when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. While Obama dithers, and postulates, and vacations in Latin America, the American people are waiting to hear what the hell is going on with the “coalition” in Libya, and what our objective there is. Bush the First, on the other hand, moved decisively and quickly, and used his experience to enact a solution:

In less than one week — by August 8, 1990 — Pres. George H.W. Bush had already gotten resolutions from the U.N. and the Arab League comdemning the invasion, along with U.N. Security Council Resolutions establishing economic sanctions and authorizing a blockade of Iraq to enforce them. He had exhausted both formal and back-channel negotiations seeking a voluntary Iraqi pull-back. He had started the deployment of American air and ground forces to defensive positions in Saudi Arabia which in turn required the most delicate of negotiations to reconcile those troops presence with the Saudis keen sensitivities as guardians of Islams most holy cities. He had consulted with both parties leaders in Congress to their general satisfaction — even though he wasnt yet sending troops or even aircraft into combat. Eventually he’d come back to them for, and win, a formal Congressional vote authorizing that. And in a straight-forward but powerful speech to America and the world on the evening of August 8, he laid out exactly what he had done, was doing, and promised to do about Saddams invasion of Kuwait.It was an expanded version of the same message hed had since his very first public statements on the crisis: “This will not stand.” No bluster, nothing grand, and certainly no diplomatic double-speak, but just the kind of grim and absolutely credible determination the American men of his generation were known for.It was as graceful and swift and deft and brilliant an exercise in international diplomacy as this planet has ever seen.

Read the whole thing, and the comments. It is in situations like this, where Obama (*DfOaLG) commits the blood and treasure of the United States -without bothering to get authorization from Congress- that we once again see the error of electing a man president who’s never had any practical experience doing, well, anything.

*Descended from Olympus and Lightworker Genius, on the order of Wile E. Coyote