| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| No'Amor Qaddafi | ||||
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Think about how this would have gone if a Republican president had been in charge. Yeah, and for the death of Osama bin Laden, too.
Obviously, there would have been an orgy of über-patriotism. Heck, George W. Bush would probably have worn his flight suit even to bed! And he would have pranced around playing "Commander-in-Chief" more than he did already.
Republicans would have exulted in that orgy, but Democrats would have tried to outdo even them in conspicuous, over-the-top patriotism. Can you imagine, in that circumstance, anyone shrugging it off as a win for Britain and France, not America? Can you imagine even that "too soon to tell" narrative from a Democrat, if a Republican had accomplished all this?
Muammar Gaddafi (or however you spell it - there are a million different ways in the Western press) was a murderous madman who oppressed his own people and hated America. You cannot exult in the death of Saddam Hussein - at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives - without being even happier at this result, at no cost in American life at all (and very little financial cost, relatively speaking).
Unless you're a Republican, of course. If you're a Republican, then anything a Democrat does is reason for disapproval and dismay. If Barack Obama walked on water, it would be seen as showboating, and they'd claim he was pretending to be Jesus (while also insisting that George W. Bush showed him how to do it).
Crazy, isn't it? "Is there no one, is there no Republican that can be gracious and statesmanlike in this situation?" No, Jon Stewart, there isn't. That's the Republican Party in America these days.
But I do like Andrew Sullivan's comment about this (posted earlier): "To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he'd be on Mount Rushmore by now."
Bill, your content was better than the Daily Show content.
ReplyDeleteThe valuable thing here is Qaddafi was taken out by his own people. I think it's better for citizens under dictators to do the job than for us to send in troops.
"To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he'd be on Mount Rushmore by now."
ReplyDeleteIt's quite a resume alright. I'd never really thought about it and I don't know how much credit he deserves for the outcome, but all questions of pure luck aside he has been presiding over more successful outcomes than the prancing, posing, posturing President Bush.