The GOP's Knee-Jerk Strategy for 2012
The GOP's Knee-Jerk Strategy for 2012
The GOP's Knee-Jerk Strategy for 2012
Since the crisis in Libya began to unfold, the potential Republican 2012 presidential candidates have expressed a broad array of views on whether and how the United States should intervene. Although the prospective GOP contenders differ from each otherand in one glaring example, Newt Gingrich seemed to disagree with himselfthere appears to be one area in which they have found unity: all have argued that President Obama has handled the Libyan crisis badly.
As early developments in Libya transpired in an unpredictable manner, the prospective Republican contenders were initially reluctant to make any bold statements. But, when the Obama administrations was seemingly hesitant in their reaction to the crisis, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania United States Senator Rick Santorum jumped at the opportunity to criticize. All three called on the establishment of a no-fly zone before President Obama could put together international support to implement one.
Rick Santorum made it clear that he at least had it all figured out, "In a very short time he'll be gone" he predicted of Moammar Gaddafi, should air strikes be carried out and a no fly zone be initiated.
In contrast to Santorum's hawkish proposal, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachman spoke out against military intervention. Eleven days before President Obama gave his Monday night address to the country, Bachman cited a lack of intelligence on the motives and backgrounds of Libyan rebels as a reason to strike at Gaddafi.
"For us to go in with American soldiers on the ground, right now would be a mistake," Bachman said, "We should not go that route. The same with armingI think that would be a mistake right now." This of course has led her supporters to spread the word that Libyan rebels fighting against Gaddafi are actually Al Qaeda and because of that, we should stay out of Libya.
Once however the President authorized U.S. led air strikes on March 19th, the prospective Republican candidates en masse echoed a unified message that Obama was managing the situation poorly. Days after the President ordered air strikes former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney broke his silence on Libya stating that while he supported military action, he believed the President had not shown an ability to "construct a coherent foreign policy."
"He calls for the removal of Gaddafi but then conditions our action on the directions we get from the Arab League and the United Nations" Romney said. Other GOP candidates and prospective candidates agreed with Romney suggesting that President Obama was too concerned with multilateralism.
Almost before the cameras switched to news commentators immediately following the President's Monday night speech, former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin escalated her own consistent criticism of the President on anything he says or anything she thinks he said by stating on FOX News that the President's address was "profoundly disappointing." She went on to say that "We're not hearing from our President what the end game is here. And with Gaddafi still in power, if we're not going to oust him via killing or capturing, then there is not an acceptable end state."
Huh?
The strategy of the Republicans thus far is to pour constant criticism on the White House and on the President's every move. This incessant criticism and disparagement of our commander-in-chief could however, prove to be risky business at a time when once again U.S. soldiers, sailors and the air force are deployed into a difficult and complicated military operation.
On March 29th, the day after President Obama's address to the nation on his Libyan policy, that bastion of American conservatism, the Wall Street Journal, while stating its own criticism of Obama's authorization of a no-fly zone also condemned what it called an "instinctive temptation" among Republicans to oppose the Libyan mission without sufficient reason.
The editorial targeted Haley Barbour in particular for offering what it called a "glib troupe to the isolationist left" in response to the Mississippi Governor's warning against nation-building in Libya.
The Wall Street Journal's disdain for the brand of GOP politics that seems to simply attack for the sake of attacking is exemplified by its ridiculing of Newt Gingrich who seemed to take a 180-degree shift in his positionfirst by calling for intervention prior to the deployment of the no fly zone to then arguing against intervention once the no fly zone had been implemented.
This past week's cacophony of Republican response to the President simply means one thing: that the Republican Party is in disarray and that the more conservative wing of the GOP has determined that the way to win in 2012 is to dispute everything the President says. If you still require proof of this, simply remember their outrage when the President had the unmitigated gall to give a speech urging America's young people to stay in school.
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