Libya

You'd really have to be living under a rock to not know that there's another major conflict going in the Middle East, this time in Libya. Don't call it a war around President Obama, though. They much prefer the term 'kinetic military action'. Yes, leave it to a bunch of liberals to avoid using the word 'war'. After all, that's what Bush did, not them. Anyway, the Right is, unsurprisingly, having a field day with it:

Defense Secretary Gates himself said that if our ad hoc cobbling together of largely unrelated objectives and media-friendly visuals plan works then “the level of kinetic activity should decline.”

You are about to see why Rush Limbaugh has a multimillion dollar talk radio empire that dominates its particular market, and I am an admittedly-amiable and reasonably creative guy blogging from home. Because this is prime stuff here (via Hot Air) coming from Rush:

RUSH: I swear, this is surreal. KMA, kinetic military activity has replaced WTF, (laughing) which is winning the future. I’m sure you thought it was something else. (laughing) Kick my — has replaced what the — Okay, so I guess we’re to assume it’s not a protest anymore. It’s a kinetic assembling action. It’s not a riot. It’s kinetic thuggery action. It’s not a vacation. It’s kinetic leisure action. It’s not golf. It’s kinetic ball striking action. It’s not dancing. It’s kinetic foot action. It’s not sex. It’s kinetic Lewinsky. (laughing) I’m not drunk. I’ve been engaging in kinetic adult beverage action. It’s not an election. It’s kinetic voting action. It’s not radio. It’s kinetic Limbaugh action. Whatever. Kinetic means motion. Military means armed forces. Action means motion. Kinetic action, moving motion. And these are the smartest people in the world.

That last sentence is obviously sarcasm, because it’s just as obviously not true.

You know it's a bad sign when the SecDef -- the guy running the show -- isn't sure of the timeline, but he thinks the KMA will 'recede' soon. And no one apparently knows what the end goal is. But never mind that little, inconsequential thing. The Canadians commanding the NATO forces there are charging ahead. Yes, the Canadians. Amazing, isn't it? Does anyone else see a leadership vacuum when the Canadians are running military operations? Don't get me wrong, I love Canadians, and what they're doing is admirable...but they can't even hold together the coalition forces! No one but the U.S. has the guts or the hardware to run this kind of op effectively. Ah, excuse me, I misspoke. No one else has the hardware, but apparently Obama doesn't have the guts.

Of course, you may have caught one odd little phrase in that last paragraph. Why is the SecDef running the show? Isn't the President the Commander-in-Chief? Yes, but...um...where is he? Not here.

Ah, there he is! We found him:

These days, not so much. While America sent its men and women into battle over the skies and off the coast of Libya, its Commander in Chief spent his day ... in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The AP does its best to spin as adeptly as Obama plays with his soccer ball:

Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes pounded faraway Libya.

It was all summed up by one image: Obama, adeptly juggling a soccer ball, as his aides helped him juggle his agenda.

Well, I agree the image sums things up nicely.

But don't worry. Even though he's out playing soccer with children while sending American men and women into war, he's got an exit strategy...kind of:

In an interview with Univision Tuesday, President Obama re-defined the term “exit strategy,” and said our exit strategy in Libya would begin this week.

“The exit strategy will be executed this week,” President Obama said, “in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment. We will still be in a support role. We will be supplying jamming, intelligence and other assets unique to us.”

Planes in the air? Ships in the Mediterranean? Intelligence being provided? Doesn’t sound like an exit strategy at all.

What it does recall is Lewis Carroll.

“‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

And this report was coming from a member of the mainstream media. If they're skeptical, you know it's a story so transparent it makes thin air look like a brick wall.

It remains to be seen what will happen in Libya and how the Obama administration will continue to screw up handle it. Of course, it's always entertaining to cross-check what liberals are saying today with what they said yesterday. It should be noted that, if a President commits American troops to military action without Congressional approval, Vice President Joe Biden has pledged to make it his personal mission to impeach that President. At least, that's what he promised in 2007, when Bush was President. Now? Apparently not so much, since there's not a peep from him about leading the impeachment charge of Barack Obama. Oh, and we can't forget the words of Barack Obama himself, either:

Huh. How about that?

For a couple of really good analysis pieces about the overall scope of U.S. military action in Libya, check out these links and teasers...

Limbo in Libya

Consistent with his socialist, we-are-all-one agenda, Barack Obama used a non-unanimous 10-vote nod from the United Nations Security Council to justify commencing hostilities against Libya, bypassing Congress, the Constitution, the will of the American public and a couple hundred years' worth of precedents. Since none of these have mattered in the past, why should they now? After all, in the mind of Obama -- or "Our Son, His Excellency" as his erstwhile pal Moammar Gadhafi called him recently -- UN authority supersedes U.S. constitutional authority and sovereignty.

Editorial Exegesis

"The expectation of the world's lone superpower in a major military operation is 'stalemate.' Welcome to the era of the Obama 'smart war.' Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen has been warning that he is unclear of the 'endgame,' as the Daily Telegraph describes it, in Libya. The outcome of Operation Odyssey Dawn is 'very uncertain' and could end up as a stalemate that keeps Col. Moammar Gadhafi in power. Appearing Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Mullen said U.S. force will mean that Gadhafi is 'going to have to make some choices about his own future.' Sounds like we're sending Dr. Phil over to Tripoli to give the longtime tyrant some tough love. ... The president says our military operations were 'authorized' by the U.N. Security Council and the Arab League. He didn't give the U.S. Congress -- the Constitution's authorizers -- even one of those bows he likes to perform in the presence of foreign gentry.

Libya is Not Our Fight

Liberals have a penchant for engaging in the wrong wars and fighting them the wrong way. They are always meek and submissive towards those who represent an existential threat to America, such as Iran, Russia, China, Syria, and Venezuela. When they finally choose to engage in military intervention, it is usually for a dubious cause or for the purpose of some humanitarian aid that lacks a clearly defined mission or end result for our troops. Unfortunately, many Bush Republicans have a predilection to automatically support any military intervention, even if it lacks a clear mission or its original purpose does not represent a substantial threat to our national security. ...

The most unfortunate aspect of Obama’s Libya campaign is that he appears to be exacerbating a wrongheaded intervention with classic liberal tepidness for decisive action. While any Libyan campaign would gratuitously cost us money and potential lives for a fight that is not our own, the one ancillary benefit of such an intervention would be the ouster of Quaddafi. Yet, that is the one goal which the Obama administration seems to be abdicating up front.

Welcome to the Obama era. God help us to survive it.