Newt Gingrich: Has anyone ever been so perfectly named? Newt: a small froglike salamander, that lives under rocks or wet leaves and emits a toxin that is sickening to humans.
Well, old Newt was at it again last week coming out with an analysis of how effectively the President handled the Libyan situation. He set up a faux question and answer text in which all the questions were written by his fawning staff, so right away you can discard any sense of balance or truth but still, I couldn’t resist taking a shot at them myself.
1- Does the president cite working with congress more than working with the Arab league or the UN?
Newt didn’t like the fact that Obama mentioned congress only once and the UN & Arab League 8 times in his speech or that he dedicated a large part of it to Arab/US cooperation. He thought it was bad that Obama seems to place a higher value on gaining the approval of UN and Arab League than on consulting with Newt and his buddies.
Of course he overlooked the fact that we needed the UN and the Arab league more than we needed congress, to get this job done efficiently, and in this decade. Last time anyone in congress got off his kiester to do anything, it took way more than the few days it took to get this one off the ground. First congress has to learn to take care of the problems here. When they get that right, maybe Obama will let them play with the big boys, overseas.
2- Does Obama define replacing Qaddafi as the goal of the action?
Newt says no. He quotes Obama as having said that making regime change the goal of the action would be a mistake and that the goal of the mission was humanitarian. He disagrees with Obama on this saying that if this was true, why did it take two weeks to make this decision and that leaving Qaddafi in power would not solve the humanitarian problem, only put it off.
Come on Newt. You can’t possibly be that stupid. Well, maybe you can. Regardless of stated goals one has to be terminally naïve to think that there is any chance this action will stop short of the removal of Qaddafi. He will either leave, or he will be killed as was illustrated by the shot that unfortunately missed him and killed several family members. As for the time frame of two weeks, our government has historically taken months to make a decision like this and the UN even longer. Obama worked miracles to get this thing in place fast enough to stop a catastrophe.
3-Does Obama pledge to request congress to pay for the cost of the war while we are still engaged in two other wars?
Newt says the President has not mentioned how this is going to be paid for.
Kind of like Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t it Newt. One thing you can bet on though is that at least this one will actually go on the books when it happens not like the other two that Bush & Cheney tried to hide until they were out of office.
4-Does Obama acknowledge the danger of Al Qaeda allies being part of the rebel forces?
Newt points out that Obama never actually referred to the possible presence of these forces but did speak to diplomatic efforts to support a transition for the rebels when Qaddafi is ousted.
I know this never occurred to Newt but in helping a people get out from under a dictator, America is doing more to fight terrorism than with all the bombs we have managed to drop on perceived enemies in the last ten years of war. The battle against terrorism can’t be fought principally with bombs. It’s a publicity war and it will only succeed when we convince the underdogs of the world that we are on their side. That will include stepping aside and letting people seeking justice, overthrow dictatorial regimes in places like Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia that we have been friendly with for years.
5-Does Obama describe clearly the command structure.
Newt says no but I’m not going to get into his long-winded reasons, which are mostly insignificant. If you haven’t already guessed the questions he’s answering have been written by his staff and bear no relationship to what has actually gone on in the action against Qadaffi. They’re just an excuse for Newt the slime-loving reptile to take a cheap shot at Obama, who is showing Newt and his bottom feeders how a President should act.
Newt thinks that military action was unnecessary. Of course he does. What the hell does he care if a couple of hundred thousand Arabs are massacred by their dictator? He doesn’t care if Americans starve to death and go uneducated and without medical help, why would he care about Libyans?
He thinks that we should have worked with our Arab allies, who want to see a post-Qadaffi Libya. Is he kidding? Maybe the other Arabs don’t like Qadaffi but they sure in hell aren’t about to push him out and set an example for their people to push them out. We have no democratic allies in the Middle-East except Israel and possibly, if they can make it work, Iraq. All the countries we call allies are run by dictators who got to be our friends by promising to fight communism or by making oil deals with us. We are buddies with the biggest bunch of scumbag lowlifes in the human race and that’s why so many Arabs hate us. Help knock off some of these dictators and the man on the desert in North Africa will soon change his currently negative opinion of us and it will be a hell of a lot harder for Al Qaeda to find people who want to kill us.