Taking Sides on Libya

Informed and intelligent sources are hard to come by, and one has to mourn the loss of one the few available. Juan Cole, at Informed Comment, has lost any trace of credibility with me when he is constantly using phrases like “criminally indiscriminate” when describing Libyan forces and “brave freedom fighters” in referring to the other side in that civil war.

Daniel Larison seems to agree with that viewpoint when he says of Cole that “I have a hard time reading his commentary on the Libyan war” because “he feels compelled to lace it with so many terms that sound as if they came straight out of a propaganda ministry.” He makes this observation in a sensible piece that puts Cole’s cheerleading on the Libyan issue into a calmer and more reasoned perspective. I don’t always agree with Larison, but he is always worth reading, and I very much agree with him that our involvement in Libya is serious misadventure.

He did a post on John McCain’s little parachute trip to Libya and his “I have met with these freedom fighters and they are not Al Queda,” pronouncement that was more than worth reading. There is no doubt in my mind that McCain, who has never been anything more than a rank opportunist, is now a senile opportunist, and that we should be beyond grateful that he did not become president.

When Democrats were visiting overseas to try and minimize the damage being done by Bush, the Republicans were screaming bloody murder about them meddling in foreign affairs and infringing on presidential prerogatives of foreign affairs, but when Saint McCain does it to interfere with a Democratic President, that’s perfectly okay. Oddly, even Democrats and liberal media seem unfazed by it.