The Associated Press reports that the House leadership has postponed a vote on a resolution demanding an end to U.S. involvement in Libya amid fears that it would pass.
Sadly, the measure had to be sponsored by one of the most leftwing members of Congress, Rep. Dennis Kucinich. The House’s GOP leadership is basically doing what I complain about in my column today: carping about the President’s incoherent policy from the sidelines, grousing about the fact that the President is violating the constitutionally dubious War Powers Act (largely beside the point: the problem is the mission, not the fact that the mission is taking longer than 60 days), but nevertheless trying to round up support for Obama … notwithstanding that the House has already voted 416-5 to deny funding for any ground troops or U.S. contractors in Libya — a vote that would be inconceivable if there were any vital American interest at stake. That is, the leadership is fraidy-scared to take a clear, accountable position. Still, it appears a confederation of antiwar Leftists and conservatives who adhere to the quaint notion described in Mark Steyn’s recent NR cover article (viz., we should go to war when our vital interests are at stake, and then fight to win) could combine to pass Kucinich’s resolution anyway.
Hilariously, Obamabot Gary Ackerman (D-NY) argues that, in connection with this Democrat-sponsored measure, Republicans “are making a choice between Moammar Qaddafi and Barack Obama.” Just imagine what he and his party would have said if Democrats had been accused of siding with al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein over George Bush. Speaking of which, we know that the “rebels” include al-Qaeda operatives and that the Muslim Brotherhood’s favorite cleric, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, has issued a fatwa calling for Qaddafi’s murder (Qaradawi, who might know just a bit more about Libya than Ackerman, is betting that Qaddafi would be replaced by an Islamist regime hostile to the West and Israel). Should we say that Rep. Ackerman is making a choice between Qaddafi and al-Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood? Or would that be bad because, y’know, we’d be questioning his patriotism?