DEVASTATING – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  The Washington Post proves once again how superior its editorial page is to the fading New York Times.  The Post picks up on the Obama-as-amateur theme, giving us a devastating editorial on the Obama Libya policy, or lack of one:

THE CONTRADICTIONS at the heart of U.S. policy in Libya are becoming more acute. On Friday President Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in declaring that the NATO air campaign, which was launched in the name of protecting civilians, will continue for as long as dictator Moammar Gaddafi remains in power. Yet in an interview he gave to the Associated Press the same day, Mr. Obama acknowledged that the war between rebels and Mr. Gaddafi’s forces is stalemated, 10 days after U.S. ground attack aircraft were pulled from the operation on his orders...

...Let’s see if we can sum this up: Mr. Obama is insisting that NATO’s air operation, already four weeks old, cannot end until Mr. Gaddafi is forced from office — but he refuses to use American forces to break the military stalemate. If his real aim were to plunge NATO into a political crisis, or to exhaust the air forces and military budgets of Britain and France — which are doing most of the bombing — this would be a brilliant strategy. As it is, it is impossible to understand.

That is exactly right, and this is from a liberal newspaper.  More than two years into his presidency, Mr. Obama is still not at the professional level.  He is confused, no one actually understands what he's doing, and we are a mess as a result.  Other than that, he is a great president.

Mr. Obama appears less intent on ousting Mr. Gaddafi or ensuring NATO’s success than in proving an ideological point — that the United States need not take the lead in a military operation that does not involve vital U.S. interests. How else to explain his decision to deny NATO the two most effective ground attack airplanes in the world — the AC-130 and A-10 Warthog — which exist only in the U.S. Air Force and which were attacking Mr. Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery until April 4?

And...

We believed that Mr. Obama was right to support NATO’s intervention in Libya not only because of the risk that Mr. Gaddafi would carry out massacres but because defeating the dictator is crucial to the larger cause of democratic change in the Middle East. Yet having reluctantly joined the fight — and accepted the goal of Mr. Gaddafi’s ouster — Mr. Obama seems determined to limit the American role even if it makes success impossible. If the president is very lucky, Mr. Gaddafi will be betrayed and overthrown by his followers or somehow induced to step down voluntarily. We can only hope that the NATO alliance does not collapse between now and then.

COMMENT:  You know a president is in trouble when you can't distinguish the attacks by liberal editorialists from the attacks by conservative writers.  This president has hit an iceberg, but, like another captain a century ago, he believes his ship is unsinkable.

April 17, 2011