I find it fascinating that it is harder to find what time the president’s speech is going to be than whether or not Lindsay Lohan is dropping her last name, especially if you are checking out CNN for the information. However, according to Yahoo! News, “Obama to lay out his case on Libya to nation” is at 7:30 pm EDT tonight.
Up until now, there has been tension between President Barak Obama and Congress due to a lack of communication (according to Congress). For one thing, conflicting statements have been made about the goal in Libya. Is it to take out Moammar Gadhafi or not?
Newt Gingrich thinks it should be, according to the above article. The sad fact is that if we do not take him out, now that we are committed militarily, then it will show once again how weak our resolve is in the minds of extremists.
Like Iraq, I have to question if anyone has really thought this one through. There seems to be disagreement amongst NATO, Europe and even to some degree in the president’s administration. How will history view this, given the admission from Defense Secretary Robert Gates that Libya was “not a vital interest to the United States”?
At least he’s not preempting Jeopardy
@buckblog: Looks like you and Richard have him bookended in. Guess he’d better not start either early or late. 🙂
A couple things. I did not watch the speech. Was not interested in watching the speech. Sometimes less is more. It seems this particular president is on TV giving a speech or an address everytime I turn around. I don’t mean prime time addresses but it seems he always has some event during the day covered by the cable channels. Kim Jung Il probably gets less facetime in N. Korea. Perhaps it is my selective memory but I don’t recall the same with other presidents, even Bill Clinton who was a man that liked to hear himself talk if there ever was one. Some of it may be a function of the modern cable news cycle but the president does have control over these things. There was a time when a presidential address meant something. I fear the importance has become dilluted.
Regarding Libya, whether we should or shouldn’t be there is irrelevent. A coherent case can be made either way. The problem is the reasoning expressed in this case which is to avert a humanitarian disaster. If that truly is our reason then what happens when the Syrians start gunning down their own citizens in earnest? Why aren’t we in North Korea, would not humanitarian grounds have been enough for Iraq?
Should part of the US goal be to take out Gadhafi? And replace him with what? From all appearences we have no idea who the leaders are of the opposition. There’s some evidence of heavy Al Qaeda sympathies among them. The problem though is that the president early on said Gadhafi must go. When the president says that he’d better be prepared to see it through. Interesting the Europeans are more hawkish on getting him out of power. Perhaps they realize that if he stays Europe is most likely to be the accessable terror target of his anger. In for a penny, in for a pound they are.
This has all the makings of making the Iraq invasion look good by comparison. A few weeks earlier a well equipped boy scout troop could have topple Gadhafi but unless the allies are willing to start bombing Tripoli they may not be able to.