Oh Dear Sweet Lord All Mighty: Obama Realized Tuesday That Sanctions Weren't Working

This could actually be spin -- spin, to offer a reason for his flip-flop, to excuse away his indecisiveness, his growing reputation as the weakest president in history and spectator in chief.

So this could be a false claim by the White House, to cover up an even worse impression.

But could he really have possibly believed that sanctions -- that never work, and even when they do work, they work over a period of months and years -- would work in Libya in a week?

Did he really "realize" that a bunch of diplomantic statements and a freeze of foreign assets wasn't doing the trick?

On Tuesday, President Obama became clear that diplomatic efforts to stop the brutality of Libyan dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi weren’t working.

Presented with intelligence about the push of the Gadhafi regime to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, the president told his national security team "what we're doing isn't stopping him.”

Some in his administration, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been pushing for stronger action, but it wasn’t until Tuesday, administration sources tell ABC News, that the president became convinced sanctions and the threat of a no-fly zone wouldn’t be enough.

Oh, dear God. Our President -- leader of the free world, commander in chief of the armed forces -- really thought that sanctions and a vague threat of force (while appearing very disinclined to carry out that threat) would be enough to convince a dictator to voluntarily relinquish power.

And that is the story they want out there.

The other story is that Obama just kind of doesn't make decisions for weeks at a time and then flip-flops his way into half-assed ones.

Via Hot Air.

2012 can't come fast enough. Hope for Change.

Does Obama Still Believe His 2008 Media Hype? The only think I can imagine is this: Obama is smart enough to know sanctions and "diplomacy" do not work on tyrants (never have, never will), and that tyrants are generally only hanged or run out of town with the hangman chasing them.

But he thinks he's different, because he's Lord God King Obama.

When other presidents use "diplomacy" and "strongly worded statements," of course that makes no nevermind to anyone, but when Lord God King Obma issues his pronouncements, he thinks that people are going to snap-to.

That's all I can think, that this is a defect of megalomania rather than diagnosable learning disability. Because surely no one could have possibly thought that Qaddaffy wasn't going to get all a-scared of some diplomatic communiques. Right? Right?

He's Like Some Kind of Genius! Not Hamlet -- Giligan.

Thanks to commenter Gilligan Obama.

You know what I just realized Tuesday? That some, perhaps even many, of my commenters do not post under their given names, but instead create fake monickers, often on the spur of the moment, for humorous effect.

Just realized that.

Nobel Prize me!!!

European Governments "Completely Puzzled" By Obama's Non-Position on Libya: Wait, wait, Gilligan's giving it a good three-pipe think.

At a meeting of G8 ministers about Libya, disagreement broke out.

Clinton stayed out of the fray, repeating the administration's position that all options are on the table but not specifically endorsing any particular step. She also did not voice support for stronger action in the near term, such as a no-fly zone or military aid to the rebels, both diplomats said.

"The way the U.S. acted was to let the Germans and the Russians block everything, which announced for us an alignment with the Germans as far as we are concerned," one of the diplomats told The Cable.

Clinton's unwillingness to commit the United States to a specific position led many in the room to wonder exactly where the administration stood on the situation in Libya.

"Frankly we are just completely puzzled," the diplomat said. "We are wondering if this is a priority for the United States."

It occurs to me that perhaps Obama is really, really good at thinking, just like the media promised.

But -- here's the catch -- maybe he doesn't like doing it, and so he doesn't.

posted by Ace at 07:07 PM

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