Obama Fails as President and Commander in Chief

Obama failed to get Congressional approval to put our military into a wartime situation over the skies of Libya in an United Nations no fly zone.  At the same time Obama through his UN Secretary Rice ensured that our pilots would have their hands tied with the UN resolution they can only bomb when they see the Gadhafi troops attacking civilians.  Obama has failed his role not only as President but as the Commander in Chief by not getting Congressional approval and putting out pilots in harms way with their hands tied thanks to a UN Resolution. 

Who does Obama think is going to be responsible for funding his wartime effort in Libya?  It is the Congress and why he needed their approval to spend as much money as this is going to cost each and every day before action commences.  A President has no authority to decide on a whim to send troops.  Congress needs to be part of the decision making and looks like Obama has a reading comprehension of his powers under the Constitution.   Is Libya a threat to the United States should have been the first question and the answer is a resounding NO!

Handing the operation off to NATO control is bait and switch as the vast majority of resources will still be the United States weaponry.  No other NATO country has the airpower of the United States and Obama/Clinton know that so no matter how they spin it, US resources are going to be used.  Those two are out of their league in this action of getting us into a 3rd wartime situation with Iraq and Afghanistan operations still ongoing.

Details of the timeline are slowly coming out of when Obama made the decision and when the Congress was notified.  Noted that Obama made the decision when Secretary of Defense Gates was traveling overseas.  Who was part of making this decision?  This paragraph may be the understatement of the year and it is also an indictment of the lackluster media we have that protects Obama and spins for him daily:

"I am completely mystified," says former top Bush aide Karl Rove, who supports the Libya intervention, "that this administration, of all administrations, makes a decision on a Tuesday night and does not bother to call anybody in Congress until Friday morning, 90 minutes before the policy is going to be executed, to tell them what is going to happen. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had tried to do that? We'd have been barbecued!"

How many people did Obama call in Congress -- the vast majority found out when he gave his recorded speech from Brazil. Just who did he call? Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi? Crickets are chirping on who was notified by Obama 90 minutes before the action commenced against Libya.  Did the White House Press Corps bother to ask or have they not been able to ask any questions of Obama.  You cannot trust his aides to tell the truth.  In fact truth took the first hit in this no-fly zone operation in Libya when the pilots targeted the Gadhafi compound when Gadhafi was not supposed to be a target.

President Obama should resign for his dereliction of duty for sending our troops into harm's way without Congressional action. Even his Vice President Joe Biden said while a member of the Senate that a President should be impeached who doesn't get approval of the Congress to commit American soldiers to a wartime action.  Calling several members of Congress 90 minutes before action commenced is not enough when there is no reason for US involvement in the United Nations humanitarian mission in Libya.  Has the United States gotten involved in other places where the UN has seen dictators attacking their own people? 
What a sorry excuse for a press corps for not having 'barbecued' Obama for his actions like they did President Bush over much smaller incidents. The double standard is alive and well and with the exception of a few reporters, the rest of the broadcast White House Press Corps should resign for their biased reporting in spinning for Obama. There are only two who stand out -- Jake Tapper, ABC, and Chip Reid, CBS, who refuse to spin but we are having a hard time identifying more of the White House reporters from the broadcast networks that we would call even handed.

Obama fails to grasp the gravity of going to war
By: Byron York 03/24/11 8:05 PM
Chief Political Correspondent http://twitter.com/ByronYork

President Obama is struggling to grasp the repercussions of going to war in Libya.-Carolyn Kaster/AP"I see Obama's visiting the United States," said Rush Limbaugh on Thursday, the president's first full day back in Washington after a spring break diplomatic tour of Latin America. For the White House, it was a touch of well-deserved sarcasm; Obama's absence at the start of the Libyan hostilities, along with his haphazard conversations with members of Congress and his nonexistent effort to prepare the American public for war, left more than a few Washington insiders shaking their heads over how the president could have mishandled things so badly.

Say what you will about the Bush White House. It knew something about preparing Congress and the public for war, having done so before invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. A president needs to lay the foundation for military action by holding extensive briefings for Congress and also by explaining to the American people why action is needed and what it will involve.

That's why veterans of the Bush White House can't quite believe what they are seeing from the supposedly communications-savvy Obama administration.

Read more comments at the Washington Examiner from former members of the Bush White House.

We think the term 'supposedly' used to describe the communications-savvy Obama administration should probably be changed to 'inept' since Jay Carney took over as press secretary.   With Emanuel and Axelrod leaving the White House, the communications has gotten much worse.  We cannot fathom if either Emanuel or Axelrod were still in the White House that Obama would have waited 90 minutes before action commenced to notify the Congress.  They both knew the firestorm that would result in the end.

How many days until a new President takes over? 667 Days, 02 Hours, 11 Minutes, 20 Seconds as of a few minutes ago from Obamaclock.org