The big Boehner took a stand against American involvement in the Libyan civil war and criticized Obama for ignoring the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which grants the executive branch 60 days to seek congressional approval for military operations.
On Friday, congress vetoed the president's attempt to get congress on board with an extension of the military operation in Libya by a year as American's are growing increasingly weary with the long drawn out conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Both Republicans and Democrats voted against the extension in a vote of 295-123, with 70 Democrats abandoning the president.
The house, frustrated with Obama, voted earlier this month to rebuke Obama for failing to find a "compelling rationale" for the Libya incursion.
Opinion time.
The Libyan civil war has received far less coverage in the news media than did Iraq or Afghanistan. This could be in good part be due to the fact that the media is predominantly liberal and supports the president, but this also, and more likely, is because the American people are simply tired of hearing about prolonged, useless, ineffectual wars overseas, and particularly in Africa and the Middle East--and therefore it has become bad copy.
The president himself was initially hesitant to get involved and he did everything to draw attention away from the military operations there, including visiting Brazil to arrange an oil deal the day the offensive began. In speaking on the event of Osama bin Laden's death and for some time after when the president saw a small rise in the polls he avoided discussion of the Libyan situation, merely making abstract references to it at best. It is fair to say, Obama is the president of allusions, abstractions and general overall misty vagueness.
Perhaps by some he will be remembered as Obama the Abstract. Or perhaps that moniker, like the president himself, is just too damn abstract.
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