By Chrissy the Hyphenated
Posted @ http://news.webshots.com/photo/2295109060056011884VfZOfR
Thursday, March 17, 2011
- Ten U.N. Security Council member countries — including France, Germany, Britain and the U.S. — voted in favor of the no-fly zone.
- Five — including Russia and China — abstained.
Friday, March 18, 2011
- 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. – Obama met with congressional leaders from both parties and both chambers about the Libya situation.
- 2:22 p.m. – Obama announced that if Qaddafi did not comply with the U.N. resolution, American forces would lead an international military coalition in enforcing the no-fly zone.
- 10:15 p.m. – The Obama family left for a five day working holiday in South America.
Saturday, March 19, 2011:
- Operation Odyssey Dawn began with US and European coalition forces bombarding Libya with cruise missiles and air attacks.
President Obama did not seek, much less get congressional authorization for Operation Odyssey Dawn. And the brief 22 minute span between the end of his 90 minute confab and the beginning of his public announcement strongly suggests he didn’t so much consult with congressional leaders as tell them what he’d already decided to do.
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers are complaining that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority. The issue of what powers the Constitution grants the U.S. President to unilaterally launch our military into action is much debated. Presidents have done so in the past, both with United Nations authorization, as when George Bush intervened in Somalia in 1992, and without it, as when Bill Clinton ordered the bombing in Kosovo in 1999.
But Obama, the alleged “constitutional scholar”, declared unequivocally in 2007:
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch.”
On Monday, March 21, 2011, President Obama sent Congress a two-page letter saying that as commander in chief, he had constitutional authority to authorize the strikes, which he believed were necessary to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Libya.
A humanitarian disaster is certainly a terrible thing that may or may not present problems for us in the Middle East. But it hardly rises to the standard Obama himself set — i.e., an “actual or imminent threat to the nation” requiring military action in the nation’s “self-defense.”
So how did ABC, CBS and NBC report all this?
Saturday, March 19, 2011:
- NBC noted how Obama always wants to get “legal justification from institutions like the United Nations and the Arab League, both of which we saw today.”
Uh … guys. Obama may believe international collaboration makes it all hunky-dory, but our laws say no foreign power gets to decide when and where U.S. troops will go into harm’s way.
Sunday, March 20, 2011:
- ABC and CBS made no mention of the controversy over the Obama administration’s decision to cut Congress out of the decision-making.
- NBC listed it as one sentence in a laundry list of other congressional complaints.
Monday, March 21, 2011:
- ABC and CBS … crickets.
- NBC reported the White House saying that Obama could hardly meet one-on-one with members of Congress while he was in Brazil, but then admitted Obama hadn’t done any real consulting with Congress BEFORE he ordered us into a third war and THEN skipped town.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011:
- CBS and NBC … crickets.
- ABC’s Jake Tapper reported he’d heard “real disappointment [among] all the Republicans I spoke to and the liberal Democrats. … But, the White House is saying: ‘Last week, some critics on Capitol Hill were complaining we were going to slow. Now they’re complaining we’re going to fast.’”
The above makes for an illuminating contrast with how these same networks reported on a similar situation in 2002. Back when the president was a Republican, ABC World News, ABC This Week and CBS Face the Nation all did segments on whether the Bush administration would have the unmitigated gall to launch military action against Saddam Hussein without congressional approval.
The networks also provided slanted to the point of being untruthful reporting on the sentiments in Congress during the four weeks leading up to the actual vote authorizing the Iraq War. During that time, the networks broadcast 51 for-or-against sound bites by members of Congress.
- 29% of the statements were for war and 59% were against it.
On October 11, 2002, Congress voted to grant legal authority to use military force if Iraq.
- 70% of the votes were for war and 29% were against it.
CNN reported, “The outcome of the vote was never in doubt.” Wow. It looks to me as if folks depending on the broadcast networks for the news would have felt a NEGATIVE outcome was never in doubt … which just goes to support a point I made the other day. I.e., it’s no wonder liberals don’t know nuthin’.
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SOURCES:
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2011/20110322124732.aspx
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2011/20110322124110.aspx
http://ebird.osd.mil/ebird2/ebfiles/e20110322810287.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51521.html#ixzz1HV8WQ7Eh
http://www.mrc.org/realitycheck/2002/fax20021014.asp
Actual Iraq War votes: Senate: 77-23 and House 296-133. Totals: 373-156 or 70% in favor of going to war in Iraq.
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