O's Urgent Inaction

by John Podhoretz - March 12, 2011 - New York Post

The White House is worried: The Libyan crisis and the general instability in the Middle East have led to spiraling gas prices. The president wanted to show the American people he knows it's a problem.

So he staged a press conference yesterday, and he basically said he's going to do . . . nothing.

He's not going to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He's not going to authorize more drilling to reduce American dependency on foreign oil because, first of all, we're already doing more drilling -- and, second of all, we can't drill our way out of the problem.

[Snip]

Khadafy must be quaking in his boots to hear that the president "has organized a series of conversations about a wide range of options that we can take." A series of conversations -- now there's something to strike fear in the heart of a merciless, murderous, monstrous dictator out to crush a rebellion.

I don't know what makes me sadder. Remembering the incoherent policies on Libya supported by George W. Bush. Or watching the incoherent policies supported by Barack H. Obama.

I am certainly not a fan of the radical jihadists who are striving to take over Libya. However Qaddafi is a brutal evil enemy of our nation who has killed our citizens. Ambivalence is not a policy that can be justified.

That said, it is hard to see how we can do anything effective at this point. The problem is that we never had a clear and effective policy when it might have made a difference in steering this nation towards freedom and away from blaming us for all the problems of the Middle East. However I certainly agree with the author of the article that Obama could have done a lot of things in the current crisis that did not leave him looking like an imbecile. That is unfortunately what he looks like.

As the discord all over the world increases, it is not in the long term interest of our nation for our leader to be viewed as an imbecile.