Media Matters’ transcript of the March 21 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:
CAMEROTA: With coalition air strikes pounding targets in Libya, President Obama is now coming under fire for taking military action because he did not ask for congressional approval beforehand. So isn’t this what President Bush went through in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq? And are there other similarities? Joining us now is Fox News analyst Peter Johnson Jr.
JOHNSON, JR.: Good morning, hi. It’s developing now, [Alisyn Camerota]. And we have to see whether this becomes President Obama’s Iraq.
Remember what they called BP’s massive oil spill? Obama’s Katrina…
Yes, the gulf spill is Obama’s Katrina. Where was the White House plan, and why has it been so slow to make decisions?
That was Karl Rove! What all of this exposes is the fact that many on the right actually knew Bush was a terrible president, knew that his policies and actions were ending up as a string of failures. Because they are well aware of this (and yet are still pushing the program, still protecting the rich from paying taxes, weakening the government’s commitment to the public, deregulating Wall Street), they can now effortlessly match anything on this string of failures, and it is a fucking long string, with anything thing that even remotely looks like an Obama failure or misstep. Next? Obama’s Black Week?
Remember when the President said Summers did a heckuva job?…or when he approved the assassination of an American citizen without so much as due process or when he renewed the Bush tax cuts?
As soon as it comes out that Obama led us into an 8-year war with Libya that costs many thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, for crazy ideological reasons, and justified by fabricated evidence, I’ll agree that that this is Obama’s Iraq.
The fucking Libyan ambassador to the UN wants the fucking air strikes. This would be a civilian massacre without it. If you are not for these bombs you are a real pacifist.
The Faithful on the Right have dutifully fallen into line, as they always do, behind the only take on the Bush years that serves their cause; Bush was right about most policy things, but his execution was flawed.
It’s the only way they can continue to push the same policies that he did while avoiding the obvious criticism that his policies lead to disaster. Where there are obvious contradictions between the party line and Bush’s actions (claiming to be for fiscal responsibility and small government while expanding the government and driving up the deficit) they employ the “No true Scotsman” fallacy and point out that he wasn’t a true fiscal conservative.
@5 i cant help to think that the republicans’ fantasy of responsibility and accountability is in the right place, but their practice is a complete hypocritical disaster, while the liberal fantasy of freedom is actually compromised by reality, pragmatism and responsibility.
@3 What about the bombs we could drop in The Ivory Cost? Bahrain? Yemen? Syria? Isreal? Iran?
This isn’t humanitarianism, this is opportunism masquerading as humanitarianism.
@6 I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.
*Israel
@7 when the whole fucking world wants to intervene and the steps necessary to do so are as clear, then fine. otherwise those countries are not an equivalency. its just a lazy argument.
@7 and 6, while you sound pretty snotty there, ill just go ahead and elaborate. something dave hickey wrote, that jazz improvisation, while ostensibly about being free, continually exposes limitations. rock on the other hand, while trying to just play a simple beat on time, actually exposes inherent freedom, because just by fucking breathing the beat moves and cant be precise. its in response to the idea that the right thinks that their ideas are so correct but that the execution, in the case of bush, was flawed.
phew, anybody still here? doubt it…
@9 Well, the whole fucking world didn’t want to intervene this time either, like the governments of Russia, China, and Brazil for example, not that I would take my morality from UN unanimity anyways. Also, the steps necessary to stop the bloodshed seem far from clear, since we’ve yet to stop it. Should it be a no-fly zone, or a no-drive zone? Shoould we work for regime change or not? What’s the end game? Will we end up with a partitioned Libya, and if so will we be protecting it indefinitely?
Other governments are killing their protesting/revolting citizens as well. It’s important to ask why we’re bombing Libya and not those other countries.
@11 russia, china, brazil.. lets see, the fox news of us foreign policy? knee jerk? ill listen to the people of libya on this, their vocal call for international intervention. maybe just keep some of the hired guns from indiscriminately shelling cities in their own country. ive got no problem with that. steps necessary to stop alot of bloodshed are very clear. but knee jerk if you want, sounds very predictable. maybe im not getting enough of my news solely from z mag, the nation, and mother jones these days.
@12 Huh? Ok. It’s not a lazy argument if it illustrates a pattern: why Libya and not those others? Other countries wanted to overthrow their dictators with varying degrees of fervor. Hello, Yemen or Bahrain–lot’s more going to be slaughtered. Hello Tibet or Burma? Why didn’t we stop any of those awful crimes? Because Libya is oil rich and some dictators are more useful than others.
You’re making the neo-conservative argument for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 all over again. But your team started it this time, so it has to be better.
its lazy because its not the same thing. believe you me, i understand that argument and felt it applied to iraq well. if you want to apply it to libya under these circumstances, well, it just seems like you are not informed much. the people of Libya are asking for international assistance, they have an open revolt, their government is massacring it’s civilians. on and on, im done explaining this, look it up. listen to the libyan ambassador http://tinyurl.com/67dl8s9 if you want to be against something no matter what then there is no level of rationalizing with you, like talking to a table remember…
if this was about oil we would have backed quaddafi. make your argument for against that. if you are a puppet parading hippie then im really wasting my time here.
Charles,
Wanted to mention that it’s not just the GOP/Right disclaiming the air strikes on Libya. They are not necessarily being obstructionists and/or literal Constitutionalists (some argue that Pres. Obama didn’t consult Congress). Even some (many?) of Obama’s supporters are confused:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/article…
As a Republican, I support Obama & the air strikes against Gaddafi’s forces. I just don’t know that the end result will be Gaddafi relinquishing power. I am glad NATO is involved to the degree it is albeit reluctantly. The UN does support the action. But, reasonable critics exist on all sides of the politcal spectrum.