Politico notes that Obama’s actions in Libya have divided both parties:
The political fault lines over U.S. involvement reveal the scope of the confusion. The mission has drawn support from prominent voices on the left: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi issued a statement praising Obama’s approach to Libya, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry has been one of the staunchest supporters of instituting a no-fly zone.
On the other hand, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a sometime Obama ally, has questioned whether the United States should “get involved in every single occurrence in that part of the world.” Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the two-time gadfly presidential candidate, called Obama’s decision to strike Libya an impeachable offense.
Reactions on the right, meanwhile, have ranged from former U.N. ambassador John Bolton’s declaration that he wants to see “troops on the ground” to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s comment that he’s “not sure we need to be involved in a third war.”
With no ideological label to easily slap on the conflict, lawmakers have offered only a “divided” and “muted reaction by all sides,” said former House intelligence committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra.
Meanwhile, libertarian Republican Ron Paul agrees with Kucinich; moderates like Democrat Jim Webbb and Dick Lugar have expressed reservations about the war. But other moderates–if Joe Lieberman and John McCain can be considered as such–wish the U.S. would do more.
It seems to me that instead of a partisan breakdown on this issue, we are seeing a genuine ideological breakdown. If you are reflexive in your view that government force can and should be the first resort of good policy, you probably support the war. If your views are more rooted in a basic attempt to leave people and their civil liberties alone, you probably oppose it.
The War in Libya is also revealing that the anti-war left was fueled by personal hatred of George Bush, and little else. Today, the ideology most reliably opposed to war is not liberalism, but libertarianism.
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