Who Just Compared Obama To Humpty Dumpty On Libya? Plus: Kadaffi Not All That Impressed

Let's play a little game of "Who Wrote This?"....

President Obama Redefines the Term "Exit Strategy"

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."

From the beginning of this suddenly-announced military campaign, the White House has been making great efforts to under-sell the US role and emphasize the participation of European allies and Arab partners. Even those Arab partners like the UAE that ultimately didn’t contribute military assets as White House officials say they had been led to believe.

If you just read that to me I'd have guessed Charles Krauthammer, maybe Rush Limbaugh if he were feeling particularly literary. But no, it's neither of those stalwarts of the right.

It was....

Jake Tapper of ABC.

No wonder he lost the "This Week" gig to the more politically reliable Christiane Amanpour.

Meanwhile...

The Qadaffi regime hasn't exactly been stopped from killing civilians and rebels alike.

Four days of allied strikes have battered Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s air force and largely destroyed his long-range air defense systems, a top U.S. commander said Tuesday. But there was little evidence that the attacks had stopped regime forces from killing civilians or shifted the balance of power in favor of the rebels.

Gaddafi loyalists made further advances into the besieged western city of Misurata, continued to pound the small town of Zintan southwest of Tripoli, the capital, and fired artillery to hold at bay rebels attempting to regroup outside the strategic eastern town of Ajdabiya.

The Libyan military’s attacks and the mounting civilian deaths call into question whether the internationally imposed no-fly zone can achieve its goal of protecting civilians, let alone help loosen Gaddafi’s grip on power. It seemed unlikely that the coalition, which has argued in recent days over the scope and leadership of the allied mission, would countenance a significant escalation.

Illegal and ineffectual? Well, there's the Obama touch for you.

Of course the White House maintains we're not at war with Libya. Makes me wonder what they would call it if the US suddenly found itself with several countries bombing it.

posted by DrewM. at 11:46 AM

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