Via NRO’s The Corner:

Good afternoon, everybody. Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. That action has now begun.

In this effort, the United States is acting with a broad coalition that is committed to enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which calls for the protection of the Libyan people. That coalition met in Paris today to send a unified message, and it brings together many of our European and Arab partners.

This is not an outcome that the United States or any of our partners sought. Even yesterday, the international community offered Muammar Qaddafi the opportunity to pursue an immediate cease-fire, one that stopped the violence against civilians and the advances of Qaddafi’s forces. But despite the hollow words of his government, he has ignored that opportunity. His attacks on his own people have continued. His forces have been on the move. And the danger faced by the people of Libya has grown.

I am deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it. I want the American people to know that the use of force is not our first choice and it’s not a choice that I make lightly. But we cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy, and his forces step up their assaults on cities like Benghazi and Misurata, where innocent men and women face brutality and death at the hands of their own government.

So we must be clear: Actions have consequences, and the writ of the international community must be enforced. That is the cause of this coalition.

As a part of this effort, the United States will contribute our unique capabilities at the front end of the mission to protect Libyan civilians, and enable the enforcement of a no-fly zone that will be led by our international partners. And as I said yesterday, we will not — I repeat — we will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground.

As Commander-in-Chief, I have great confidence in the men and women of our military who will carry out this mission. They carry with them the respect of a grateful nation.

I’m also proud that we are acting as part of a coalition that includes close allies and partners who are prepared to meet their responsibility to protect the people of Libya and uphold the mandate of the international community.

I’ve acted after consulting with my national security team, and Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress. And in the coming hours and days, my administration will keep the American people fully informed. But make no mistake: Today we are part of a broad coalition. We are answering the calls of a threatened people. And we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world.

Thank you very much. (emphasis added)

So, no troops on the ground, a bit of bombing and support of a coalition enforcing a no-fly zone. Sorry, but this seems tailor made to create a stale mate. Without energetic efforts to make the rebels stronger so that they may achieve victory we will be getting nowhere.

I point you to a story from December of 2003, a little over a week after Saddam Hussein was captured…

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, in an exclusive interview with CNN, acknowledged Monday that the war in Iraq may have played a role in his decision to dismantle his country’s weapons of mass destruction programs.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: and the kook left is already out there protesting the US action. Now, liberals, where is the declaration of war which you insist must happen before any US military action? Shouldn’t you now get out there and demonstrate against Obama’s illegal war for oil?

UPDATE II, by Mark Noonan: Ok, so this is the War to Protect Civilians. Does this mean we’re protecting all of the civilians of Libya, or just rebel civilians? Do we care at all about the civilians still suffering under Gaddafi’s rule? What is the purpose of our action? Are we trying to get rid of Gaddafi? Just prevent his victory? Are we hoping for a negotiated settlement between Gaddafi and the rebels? Suppose Gaddafi adheres to no-fly (and he probably will by fact of his pilots refusing to go in to the air) but still drives on over land? Maybe not at Benghazi where attention is focused but round about to hit the rebels at Tobruk?

Inquiring minds want to know…but the basic we have here is that there is no policy, there is an attitude. Something had to be done, and so something has been done…but there is no direction from the President of what we hope to accomplish.

UPDATE III, by Mark Noonan: Early reports are that 110 cruise missiles have been fired. That is the sort of softening up you’d do if you planned on invading…are we going to send in the Marines? If that is the case, then that would be a good thing…ensures an anti-Gaddafi victory…but leaves open what sort of post-Gaddafi regime we want and what we’re willing to do to ensure it happens. And if we’re not going to send in troops, then why take a sledge hammer to a flea?

I caught Secretary of State Clinton’s statement just a bit ago and while I haven’t come across a transcript of it, the most telling part of it was where the Secretary of State asserted that the United States finds the recent Saudi intervention in Bahrain to suppress dissent acceptable. Clinton couched it in terms of the Bahraini government having the right to “call in” forces from the Gulf Cooperation Council, but the naked fact is that the United States has disinterested itself in the fate of Gulf movements aimed at change of government.

This seems to have been the price extracted for Arab support of the no-fly operation in Libya – an operation, it must be noted, which does not have any stated goal other than a nebulous “protect civilians”. Essentially, we have indicated that while we’re ok if the Libyan rebels, under the cover of no-fly, manage to oust Gaddafi…but we won’t do anything to advance that goal, nor will we offer any support to any other Arab/Moslem people who desire a radical change in government. We want stability.

Its the old, old game with them – what is there today must be perpetuated in to the future so that US policy is never called upon to change. If people have to suffer under brutal and corrupt dictatorships then that is the price they’ll have to pay because foreign policy “experts” figure that any actual armed conflict is worse than any state of peace, even if it is the peace of the grave (and, of course, as long as the shooting goes on behind prison walls; Gaddafi’s crime in State Department eyes is that he started massacring his people in public).

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are just doing as they are told – but it is in conformity with their basic world view. This world view asserts that stability is worth any price, that the UN (which, by the way, had Libya on its human rights panel) is necessary for any action, that the weakest and most corrupt member must call the tune, that American power is to be subservient to the goals of non-Western interests in general, and non-American interests in particular.

I do hope that under the no-fly regime that the Libyan people manage to oust their particular tyrant and that the successor regime is in some respects civilized (a highly doubtful prospect, but anything is possible). But I think this is the end of rebellion, for now. Further explosions are bound to happen as the corrupt regimes of the Moslem world continue…but for this day,and for this time, it looks like the whole world is gathering together to sustain the brutes currently in power.

From Gallup:

Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was at 10.2% in mid-March — essentially the same as the 10.3% at the end of February but higher than the 10.0% of mid-February and the 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is about the same today as the 10.3% rate Gallup found in mid-March a year ago.

Given the way the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been playing around with the employment numbers (and always in a way that helps Obama and his Bankster buddies….hmmmmm….), we should probably look towards Gallup to get a real idea of where unemployment is. And this probably does understate it given that if labor force participation over at the BLS was at the 10 year average we’d be at nearly 12% unemployment right now (but we can’t have that sort of official number…it would harm the “we’re recovering” meme).

Bottom line – the “recovery” has been anything but, and worse is probably coming.

You betcha! Headline from Reuters:

U.S. to deploy more ships to support Libya planning (emphasis added)

Planning? Planning!?!?! For goodness sake, Libya’s military is, at best, fourth rate. We’re not talking about taking on an air force with any ability to sustain active hostilities. Sure, they can bomb open towns unopposed…but it seems that Libya’s pilots and ground crews are foreign mercenaries who won’t want to tangle with a real air force; additionally, it appears that most of Libya’s most modern planes (and they aren’t all that modern) are not in flying condition. We’re not talking about taking on the Luftwaffe or something comparable to a mission against Hanoi in 1970…we’re talking about policing the skies above Libya to give the rebels a breather and allow Gaddafi’s loyalists to draw the proper conclusions about his long-term survivability. This should be able to be done right now – not a few days from now.

And a few days from now it will be – if you look in to the article we’re talking about deploying the USS Bataan on March 23rd…five days from now. This is just playing around…meanwhile, latest reports are that Gaddafi’s forces are continuing offensive operations…

Weak. Pathetic.

From Life News:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said today that Republicans who favor cutting taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business need to give up their quest because the Senate will not agree to it…

What he really means is that he will not agree to it – Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, will ensure that it doesn’t come up for a vote…because he knows that if it does, it’ll pass easily. Other than dyed-in-the-wool liberals and a couple RINOs, no one in the Senate is really going to go to the mat to maintain Planned Parenthood’s funding. The American people don’t support abortion funding, the nation is broke and Planned Parenthood has been revealed as an utterly corrupt organization…cutting them off would be popular…but the Culture of Death simply owns the Democrat party leadership, and Harry is now doing his Master’s bidding.

From the Asbury Park Press:

The century-old Bangs Avenue School — renamed for President Barack Obama just a year ago — will be closed as a neighborhood school this summer, largely because of a steep slide in the district’s total enrollment the past decade.

Bruce N. Rodman, the state-appointed monitor who oversees the district’s finances, Thursday ordered that elementary students be reassigned to the city’s two other elementary schools as of July 1…

What a gigantic absurdity – naming a school after a living, serving President! And when they named it, did they not have a clue, at all, that perhaps enrollment didn’t even justify it? How incompetent a sycophant do you have to be to name something doomed after your Dear Leader? But, it gets even more silly:

…The district plans to keep the Obama name as it uses the school building in a different way.

At the same time, the school district is applying for federal school improvement grants that could bring $2 million a year for three years to a distressed building. The funds were being sought for the Obama, middle and high schools.

They’ve named not just one but three schools after the President. For goodness sake, are we living in Stalin’s Cult of Personality? Just how many Obama schools are out there? Someone needs to drag an arts grant through liberal neighborhoods to see what turns up! Additionally, it is just so liberal that they are looking for federal grants – grants, that is, from a bankrupt government – in order to spruce up their other two efforts at being lickspittles.

You begin to wonder – do these people in any way, shape or form even feel American? Americans don’t do this sort of nonsense. We don’t name schools after men who are still in office…men who may be tossed out on their ear at the next election. I know the Europeans gave him a Nobel without Obama actually accomplishing anything, but I didn’t think that anyone who shares my citizenship would be that idiotic.

From CNBC:

…A special index created by the Labor Department to measure the actual cost of living for Americans hit a record high in February, according to data released Thursday, surpassing the old high in July 2008. The Chained Consumer Price Index, released along with the more widely-watched CPI, increased 0.5 percent to 127.4, from 126.8 in January. In July 2008, just as the housing crisis was tightening its grip, the Chained Consumer Price Index hit its previous record of 126.9…

This is no surprise to most of us – we know as we buy our food, pump our gas and otherwise just live day to day that we’re being squeezed. My father-in-law hasn’t had an increase in his Social Security check in years…because Uncle Sam says prices haven’t risen. And by the official number, it hasn’t – but the CPI has been driven down by the collapse of home prices and, astoundingly, the main CPI number deliberately excludes food and energy prices.

If you are in the market for a house, this is good times for you – I recently saw a house which originally went for about $350,000.00 sell for $80,000.00 after foreclosure. But if you already own your home then you are highly likely to be “underwater” and, in addition, your pay has likely stayed pretty much the same for the past few years…meanwhile, the food, gas and clothing you buy has been steadily rising in price.

There are two reasons for this state of affairs. The fundamental problem is one of production – we here in America do not make, mine and grow enough of our own stuff. This makes us dependent on foreign supplies and thus we have little ability to keep prices down by ramping up production on our end. The second reason is, of course, the massive printing of money by the Federal Reserve. In order to bail out insolvent banks and keep stock prices high, Bernanke has printed up bags of money. And you should really let that sink in: in order to keep rich people rich, Bernanke has essentially been picking your pocket by way of the printing press. Every time he whistles up another bag of cash to bail out a bank, the money you have becomes worth less. Bernanke might as well pull a gun on you and demand your wallet – though we’ll never get anything as straightforward as that out of him. Amazing to think that the man at the head of our financial affairs falls lower in the honor stakes than a mugger.

Here’s the bad news – there are already rumors that after the latest round of “quantitative easing” is finished yet another will follow. Why? Because liberal economic theory seriously contends that printing money is helpful and, additionally, if Bernanke were to shut off the spigot, stocks would lose half their dollar value in a flash. Can’t have that, now can we?

From Rasmussen:

Just 22% of Likely U.S. Voters say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest level of confidence found since before President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.

According to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, March 13, 72% of voters now say the country is heading down the wrong track, also at its highest level since before the inauguration…

I’d like to see an in-depth study of those who think we’re heading in the right direction…you’ve got to be a bailed-out bankster or some such to figure things are going well. Even if you believe that Obama is doing the right thing, no one fully conscious of the facts can be other than dismayed at the course of events.

This just says it all about President Obama and his entire Administration – from the Washington Times:

As a thank-you to its most famous customer, Amtrak is renaming the train station in Wilmington, Del., after stimulus “sheriff” Vice President Joseph R. Biden – after the project received $20 million in stimulus money and came in $5.7 million over the initial announced budget.

Spokesmen for Mr. Biden, who said he personally fought for stimulus money for Amtrak, didn’t respond to messages Wednesday or Thursday…

The only thing which says “waste” more than Amtrak, itself, is the absurdity of naming a station after a living man…and then going massively over budget on the project. One wonders – Biden is Catholic. I’ve heard he frequently prays the Rosary…for goodness sake, I can’t imagine how a Catholic could ever envision any set of circumstances which would allow him to sign off on something being named after himself while he lived. There’s a reason, you know, why the Church usually waits a very long time before proclaiming someone a saint…better to wait until all the evidence is in, you know? Biden might end up the greatest Vice President in American history…but a bit more than two years in to his term, its a bit premature to be building monuments to him.

This is what you wanted, however, my fellow Americans. A majority of you voted for precisely this. No backing out of it now – you are free to recover your honor in 2012 and vote to end this imbecile regime…but you’ll never get past the fact that, once upon a time, you really thought that Barack Obama and Joe Biden were the answers to America’s needs…