Time for Obama to speak to us about Libya

[woolldog]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/it-s-time-for-obama-to-speak-to-us-about-libya-michael-waldman.html

Time For Obama to Speak to us about Libya
by Michael Waldman-March 23, 2011

Barack Obama has opened the first new military action of his presidency in Libya. He may believe U.S. missiles speak for themselves. They don’t.

He has a duty to explain to his country and to the world why he did what he did. In so doing, he must embrace the unilateral, at times unsettling, aspect of presidential command. Here, stagecraft is statecraft.

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at no time so far has he spoken to the country, at length, about why he felt it necessary to take this military action, at this moment. He hasn’t clearly argued the benefit to U.S. national security that may come from the popular movement toward democracy in the Arab world. And he hasn’t set out his vision of where this action fits into a larger framework: What are America’s goals? When will it intervene? What limits will it place on that intervention?


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Here’s hoping that Obama finds his voice, too. When he returns to Washington, he should land at Andrews Air Force Base, take a helicopter to the White House, stride into the Oval Office and deliver a prime-time address. We will be listening.