-By Warner Todd Huston
Despite initially intending to skip a public address, President Obama finally came before the nation last night to speak about his plans and ideas for America’s engagement in Libya. Unfortunately there are more questions than answers still and members of the Illinois congressional delegation are less than satisfied with Obama’s Libya policies.
For one, Peter Roskam (R, 6th), Chief Deputy Whip of the GOP led House, is less than happy with Obama’s televised appearance.
Even though it comes nine days after our military became engaged in Libya, I am pleased President Obama took the opportunity to address the country tonight. Unfortunately many questions still remain. Even with a nationally-televised, widely-promoted speech, Americans still don’t have the answer to a basic and essential question: what is the benchmark for success in Libya?
Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R, 11th) went a step farther yesterday and said that, even though he is not advocating sending troops at this time, we should not automatically rule out sending in American ground troops. “What you end up seeing is when you say we’re never going to send in American troops–you take away that ability to use that as a trump card or leverage.”
Kinzinger’s idea does not sit well with Representative Bob Dold (R, 10th) who, along with Republican Senator Mark Kirk, said that he opposes sending in American ground troops to Libya. Dold made this policy announcement at a recent town hall meeting in Northfield.
Representative Randy Hultgren (R, 14th) has said that Obama has been “very vague” in his plans for Libya. Representative Don Manzulo (R,16th) agrees saying through a spokesman that Obama needs to “explain what the mission is” in Libya.
Congressman Bobby Schilling (R, 17th) also says that we are waiting for further information from the president.
All in all, it seems that Obama has yet to satisfy the nation on just what we are doing in Libya and what he intends to do.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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