From Politico:
After demanding for weeks that he be more decisive on Libya, not one candidate in the field of 2012 GOP hopefuls has expressed support for President Barack Obama since he began bombing the North African nation.
The GOP’s presidential prospects either sharply criticized the commander-in-chief this weekend or avoided weighing in.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday afternoon, "It is impossible to make sense of the standard for intervention in Libya except opportunism and news media publicity."
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said Obama waited so long that the United States "may have missed our window of opportunity."
[R]epresentatives of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann did not respond to requests for comment.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour didn’t mention Libya in a long Saturday night speech to California’s Republican convention.
And, naturally, after telling an Indian audience that she wouldn't criticize a U.S. president's foreign policy on foreign soil, Sarah Palin promptly added that had she been president, "certainly there would have been more decisiveness" and "less dithering."
Is there no low, no wholesale absence of self-respect that even this pitiable herd of unremarkable scolds is willing to renounce?
Each of these walking banalities fears above all else that in the race for the GOP nomination, he or she will be unable to distinguish him- or herself from the rest of the unimposing pack. Here was the opportunity, and each has refused to take it. That's how scandalously banal, boring and predictable they are.
Well...no surprise there.
That said, I really wonder about the mental health of those both on the right and the left who would prefer any of these folks in office instead of President Obama.
Posted by: Marc McKenzie | March 21, 2011 at 11:06 AM
What's also despicable is Kucinich saying that Obama should be impeached over this.
Posted by: Alli | March 21, 2011 at 12:30 PM
Also, too, Newt. Opportunism? For what? Didn't he say Obama was anti-colonial?
Posted by: Alli | March 21, 2011 at 12:54 PM
Their corporate overlords simply haven't told them which position to take yet. I noticed the absence of the tea partiers when Wall Street Reform was being debated and the issue of eliminating corporate bailouts was being discussed, they were MIA. Their absence told me all I needed to know about the authenticity of the groups and their demands. The tea partiers had spent over a year yelling and screaming, "No More Bailouts,!!" but when WSR was being debated, they were nowhere in sight because neither Armey, Russo, Marsh, the Kochs, or any of the lobbyists TOLD them they needed to be involved. I think the same thing applies to a certain extent to the potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates and the situation in Libya. If Rove was known as Bush's brain, the corporatists together represent the brain of the 2012 GOP presidential candidates.
Posted by: majii | March 21, 2011 at 05:47 PM
Kuncinich, Nader, M. Moore, Ellsworth are all calling for his head.
I am also tired of the fact that the dems never seem to support PBO. Ed Markey of MA said we were in this because of Libya's oil. A democrats makes an accusation like that against the President. I am shaken to my bones.
Will it never end? thanks p m
Posted by: Dorothy Rissman | March 21, 2011 at 07:35 PM
There are times when I wonder why President Obama doesn't simply say, "Screw it. You know so much more about it? Then YOU figure out how to untangle all these baskets of cobras with your bare hands," and walk away from it all.
Then I see how he is with his daughters, with all children, and I know why he sticks it out.
Posted by: janicket | March 21, 2011 at 08:02 PM
If Sarah was reading "all of them" newspapers she might know her party's members of Congress think Obama is overstepping his Constitutional authority. But I guess a Republican CoC would be enough to settle the Constitutionality question for Republicans in Congress.
Posted by: Bulworth | March 22, 2011 at 09:49 AM