Opinion

Republicans just won't give Obama a break

If the Obama administration had failed to intervene to prevent a massacre of the rebels in Libya, Republicans would right now be condemning him for weakness and moral cowardice.

And if the president were a Republican and had organized the international coalition that stopped Moammar Khadafy's forces in their tracks, Republicans would right now be cheering his boldness.

Instead, Republicans in Congress are sniping at President Obama's Libya adventure at every turn.

Certainly, all presidents suffer criticism from the opposition party. George W. Bush was pummeled with hard shots from Democrats for pretty much every aspect of his policy in Iraq - but not by every Democrat and not from the very beginning. Plenty of D's, including Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, voted for the resolution that sent the troops rolling toward Baghdad. They were not enthusiastic about doing so, but they held to an old-fashioned idea that, in times of international conflict, the commander in chief deserves measured support, even from his political adversaries.

Now, however, in a far less daunting undertaking, Obama can get no respect from the other side, unless you count good old John McCain, who was honest enough to acknowledge that Obama had done a pretty good job in organizing the strike against the Libyan dictator. The singularity of McCain's compliment only underlines the raw partisanship of the rest of the Republicans.

They are holding Obama to a standard they never required of Bush. What's the exit strategy? How much will this cost? What's the master plan for victory? It was years before those questions occurred to Republicans in the case of Bush and Iraq. With Obama and Libya, answers were being demanded about two minutes after U.S. fighter jets took flight.

Frankly, the Republicans' lockstep dissent indicates less concern for defeating Khadafy now than for defeating Obama a year and a half from now.