The speech has a number of good reviews out there.
You won’t get that from me.
But then – any time I listen to Obama I have problems, so don’t mind me.
I found the tone of the speech to be one big excuse. “Here is me, letting you folks who have been complaining, in on my plan for Libya because apparently you aren’t getting it from the news reports. X, Y, Z and to be blunt – we didn’t do X, Y, Z in Iraq so it was bad, but this is good. I am a leader. And you can tell I’m a leader because I just said so. I have put together this coalition and like any good community organizer I, as a leader, am letting others do some of the work. Because that’s how good leadership works. And no, we’re not ousting anyone like the last unleaderly President. Instead, I, a leader, am doing all I can and hoping that Khadaffi will be ousted. In the meantime – good on you youths out there. I am proud of your radicalism, so just you remember in the future and don’t attack us, because we’re the US and I’m here to help. ok. remember that. “
Victor David Hansen has a take too. His take is probably fairer so go read the whole thing.:
Translation: It now seems good to have removed Saddam, but too costly. It was good to remove Milosevic, but it took too long. So I will remove Qaddafi much more quickly and at far less cost, but I won’t do it by targeting Qaddafi, but by preventing his aircraft from flying and hoping Qaddafi goes away. Qaddafi deserves our special intervention because he is worse than other dictators, such as an Assad who is a “reformer” or Ahmadinejad whom we won’t “meddle” against. We successfully sought a UN resolution to protect the people, and will stick by it, but hope somehow someone will go beyond it and remove Qaddafi. We are an exceptional nation that has always acted out of humanitarian concerns in a way not true of other countries (“To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.
