Are Libya and the Budget Part of Obama's Re-election Strategy?

According to a working theory by Erik Erickson this morning at Red State that could be the Obama endgame which would make sense when nothing else does.

“The best playbook for his re-election is that of Bill Clinton. But Clinton had a government shutdown and Kosovo. In the absence of either, Barack Obama must manufacture them.”

If Obama thinks his war in Libya and a shutdown of Government is going to win him points with the voters then he is delusional. The shutdown of Government under Clinton wouldn't have worked for him either while hurting Republicans if we had the internet to find out the facts not what the media was feeding us for facts.  Adding to the spin of the media was Newt Gingrich's poor handling of the situation with his comments.  The action to shut down Goverment helped Clinton but in this instance the American people are not buying into the Democrat and media spin on the shutdown. 

Obama and the Democrats have made a mockery of the FY 11 budget process and the American people know it.  The White House is not negotiating so the Congress passes three-week continuing resolutions with billions cut each time.  That is no way to run the Government and it can be laid right at the doorstep of the Democrat Senators and President Obama -- they are fully responsible.  Forgot to mention the House in all of this mess when under Pelosi's rule, they 'deemed' a budget passed last fall instead of having an actual budget so the trifecta of Obama/Reid/Pelosi strikes again against the interests of the American people.

On the second front for reelection, Libya, Obama is considering coming back from Central America early but why bother as he already blew this whole exercise if it was to make him look Presidential. He looks like a wimp flying off to Brazil, Chili, and Central America for a spring break with his family.  No amount of spin is going to change a lot of our minds that he is using Air Force One jetting off to the south for a vacation without giving one thought to the high price of jet fuel that is costing the American taxpayers dearly. Giving a recorded message to the American people including members of Congress that he was sending our military into war instead of talking to Congressional leadership face to face is the act of a wimp and a coward. He never once bothered to seriously consult with any of the leadership of Congress before making the decision. He acted as a 3rd World Dictator using the military at will in what he thought would make him look Presidential. We give him a "F" for dithering during this whole conflict and then waiting for the UN to pass one of the dumbest resolutions EVER when sending military in a wartime situation:

Under the U.N. mandate authorizing the mission, international fighter pilots are not permitted to intervene in battles between Libya’s forces and the loosely organized rebels.

The above is the mission of the UN resolution in a nutshell but that is not what Obama is saying as he talks about regime change which is nowhere in the resolution according to the Washington Post:

The U.N. Security Council’s stated objective is “the immediate establishment of a cease-fire and a complete end to violence.” This is entirely incompatible with President Obama’s stated objective of getting Moammar Gaddafi “to step down from power and leave.” If the violence ends, Gaddafi will not leave. To the contrary, if military intervention succeeds in achieving the United Nations’ goal of forcing a cease-fire on the warring parties, it will lock in the status quo on the ground. Two weeks ago, this would have left the rebels with control over large swaths of the country. But today, Gaddafi has regained most of the ground he lost to the resistance. The air campaign stopped him from driving the rebels from their last urban strongholds. But now the opposition holds Benghazi as the capital of a liberated enclave, protected by Western air power — much as Iraqi Kurdistan was during the decade before the fall of Saddam Hussein.

While reading the column by Michael Barone this morning in the Washington Examiner was struck with the huge difference in candidate Obama and President Obama. We have seen candidates change their spots after being elected but this time Obama throws candidate Obama under the bus:

"It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action," candidate Obama said in December 2007

Why does the mainstream media continue to cover for Obama most of them not even mentioning what Candidate Obama said? Talk about dereliction of duty -- members of the media come straight to mind right after Obama.

The damning contradictions of Obama's attack on Libya

By: Michael Barone 03/22/11 8:05 PM
Senior Political Analyst http://twitter.com/MichaelBarone

President Obama has sent U.S. military forces into Libya.-Pablo Martinez Monsivais/APLet's imagine that all goes well in Libya. The rebels, protected by airstrikes, recapture lost territory and sweep into Tripoli. Moammar Gadhafi and his sons one way or the other disappear.
Leaders propose a democratic and secular constitution that voters overwhelmingly approve. The first act of the duly elected government is to issue a proclamation of thanks and friendship to the United States, Britain, France and others who prevented Gadhafi's mass slaughter.

Well, we can all dream, can't we?

But in the cold light of day none of these happy eventualities seems very likely. As one who hopes for success in this enterprise, I am dismayed by the contradictions in the course we are following.

Some three weeks ago President Obama said Gadhafi "must go." But the U.N. Security Council resolution under which we are acting stops well short of this goal.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen confirmed that Gadhafi may remain in power indefinitely. National Security Council staffer Ben Rhodes said, "It's not about regime change."

If not, then the purported purpose of the operation, to "protect civilians," could be of unlimited duration. Libya might well be divided between a Gadhafi regime in the west around Tripoli and a rebel regime in the east around Benghazi.

Maintaining the existence of the latter will likely require military force. Obama has conceded that the United States is currently in command of operations, but says that command will be handed off to others in "days, not weeks."

But news reports make it clear that the overwhelming majority of military forces in action are American. Putting a British or French officer in command will not change that. And putting U.S. forces under foreign command might weaken support for the enterprise here at home.

(snip)

The result in Libya is a policy whose means seem unlikely to produce the desired ends.

In the process, this Democratic president has jettisoned some of the basic tenets of his party's foreign policy.

"It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action," candidate Obama said in December 2007. But Congress was not informed or, it seems, consulted in any serious way about this decision to take military action in Libya.

Instead members of Congress, like the general public, heard the president make the announcement in Rio de Janeiro. That's quite a contrast with George W. Bush, who sought and obtained congressional approval of military action in Afghanistan in September 2001 and Iraq in October 2002.

Since then many Democrats have denounced Bush's "rush to war" in Iraq. But military action there began a full five months after Congress approved. Obama didn't wait five days after the Security Council resolution.

Excerpt: Read more at the Washington Examiner

The mainstream media has remained pretty quiet about the fact that Obama took this action to launch a war in Libya while on vacation. They would have crucified Pres Bush on several fronts if he took the same action as Obama when he (Bush) launched the attack on Iraq, e.g. not consulting Congress, going on vacation to a foreign country, launching a war from Brazil via a recorded message that members of Congress heard right along with the rest of us for starters. That doesn't even include how the Democrats in Congress would have acted if Bush had followed the same path. Talk about a double standard. Some Democrats and media still talk about how Bush rushed to war in Iraq after six months of meetings in Congress, a Congressional resolution authorizing the action, along with the United Nations resolution. Five days after the UN resolution Obama launches the attack on Libya without consulting Congress from a foreign country. Where is the outcry?

For ten years the United States was involved in the no-fly zone in Iraq before we attacked. We believe that's what we are looking at in Libya for a no-fly zone if not longer if things don't change drastically. Obama can dream all he wants about how this will help him with his reelection, but in the end we are in the skies of Libya without an end game and with no vested interest in Libya. Obama waited too long to call for a no-fly zone and gave Gadhafi a chance to regain some of his strength.  To put it in simple terms -- Obama failed on Libya.

Now we are stuck patrolling the skies of a no fly zone thanks to this inept President who looks to be putting his reelection ahead of the good of the Country. Kind of reminds you of LBJ until he finally realized he couldn't get reelected due to his escalation and micromanaging the war in Vietnam. Will history repeat itself with Obama deciding not to run? We doubt it as he is more of a narcissist then LBJ which is saying something.