Free Republic

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. This uninspiring quote has haunted Barak Obama. It leaves some doubt as to whether the president truly regards America as exceptional, or merely expresses a superficial team spirit. In the wake of the president's speech earlier this week, during which he attempted to sell his intervention in Libya, leftist commentators have seized upon one of his justifications and flaunted it as evidence of his belief in American exceptionalism. Steve Benen proclaimed that Obama's speech should put an...

President Obama gave an impassioned, sometimes eloquent, defense of his policies in Libya tonight. But when it came to justifying the limited goals of the military mission, his speech was fundamentally dishonest. Obama presented himself as standing between two extremes — those on the one hand, who want to do nothing in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe, and those on the other who want to invade Libya the way George W. Bush invaded Iraq.... This is a straw man, and the president knows it. No serious person is arguing that we should “repeat in Libya” what we did in...

When King George VI gave his Sept. 3, 1939, war message to the people of the British Empire, it was a time of great moment. It was a “grave hour,” he began, “perhaps the most fateful in our history.” The king said that “for the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at war.” That, however, was back when war was war. Now it is just kinetic military activity...

THE PRESIDENT: Tonight, I’d like to update the American people on the international effort that we have led in Libya –- what we’ve done, what we plan to do, and why this matters to us. I want to begin by paying tribute to our men and women in uniform who, once again, have acted with courage, professionalism and patriotism. They have moved with incredible speed and strength. Because of them and our dedicated diplomats, a coalition has been forged and countless lives have been saved. Meanwhile, as we speak, our troops are supporting our ally Japan, leaving Iraq to its...

The President's address was an exercise in psychodrama, a weird journey through the mind of a narcissist who can't believe all the nasty things people are saying about him. Obama's id is wrestling with the comparisons between his Libyan intervention and George Bush's action in Iraq. He made a point of criticizing Iraq, which had a vastly larger international coalition behind it than Obama does now, united in the struggle to depose an even more gruesome and sadistic monster than Qaddafi. He warned us that we might be stuck in post-Qaddafi Libya for a while because "40 years of terror...