Page 23 - Tom Ricks News Today

Woodward, this caught my eye in the financial times. this is it a president would could still run in 2012 on the grounds that he got out of two wars. hes not going to do things to distract us from afghanistan and thats totally consistent with what i call the obama doctrine, that other countries are going to have to do more in a more diverse international order. >> but this is war. uf can you cant extinguish our knowledge about war. this idea that you can have a limited video game, it just isnt t...

Rhetoric, though, is while hes saying the u.s. will take this military, we need to do this, you can see the subtext clearly his own reluctance to do so. its not the normal commander in chief fare, our cause is just, our cause is righteous, well see it through to the end. instead you hear him saying, well be in and out. its limited in duration. we wont be the ones enforcing the no-fly zone. wont be our ships enforcing the arms embargo. you see that reluctance shot through his rhetoric. >> tom ric...

Hands, and the president is obviously not happy with his set of choices. one person told me in a meeting he called this military action in libya a terd sandwich. but he was quoting an aide who likes that term. >> ted koppel, you spent time with henry kissinger in the earlier days who knew something about the big ideas for the world. is this administration getting the big ideas right in the tumult in the middle east? >> i dont think anybody has the big ideas right yet. first of all, lets take a l...

Spentding most of his time these days on these national security issues. >> tom, youre a little bit more sanguine about this analytically. you said off camera there is a natural flow to libya from the presidents cairo speesh where he tried to refashion americas image in the rest of the world. >> yes. last week the white house was talking about the slaughter in former hugo slauf area. if he had let that happen, stood back, this would be an enormous blot on the presidency worse because the preside...

an advance by the rebels. if the air strikes stop, then the rebels will no longer be able to advance and this could become a long, drawn-out stalemate. >> in ajdabiya, richard engel with the very latest. as part of the presidents effort to more explain the mission in libya, hillary clinton and robert gates sat down here with me yesterday, secretary gates, secretary clinton, welcome back to "meet the press." the president says this was days, not weeks, were into the second week. has t...

robert gates. then -- the president faces critics from both sides of the aisle. did he overstep his constitutional authority by using force without consulting congress. my interview this morning with republican from indiana senator richard lugar. finally, analysis of the administrations handling of the crisis in libya is our fragile economic recovery continues and our military is stretched thin by two other wars, did the president make the case to the american people that libya is ...

secretary of state hillary clinton and secretary of defense robert gates. then -- the president faces critics from both sides of the aisle. did he overstep his constitutional authority by using force without consulting congress. my interview this morning with republican from indiana senator richard lugar. finally, analysis of the administrations handling of the crisis in libya is our fragile economic recovery continues and our military is stretched thin by two other wars, did the p...

clinton and secretary of defense robert gates. then -- the president faces critics from both sides of the aisle. did he overstep his constitutional authority by using force without consulting congress. my interview this morning with republican from indiana senator richard lugar. finally, analysis of the administrations handling of the crisis in libya is our fragile economic recovery continues and our military is stretched thin by two other wars, did the president make the case to t...

Thats totally consistent with what i call the obama doctrine, that other countries are going to have to do more in a more diverse international order. >> but this is war. i mean you cant extinguish our knowledge about war. this idea that you can have a limited video game, it just isnt the way it is. no one knows more about this than tom ricks. and the question is, whats going on here, and the larger picture is what savannah is calling the arab spring. im not sure whether its unrest, an up heevl,...

>> as bob reported -- >> you can see it. the irony, of course, that obama in 2008 was the anti-war candidate, and for him to be the person who has brought us into a third conflict in the middle east, i think that is why you see that anguish. he does not want to be in these circumstances, but he feels that his hand has been forced. i think it is going to be a concern on the left. but whats interesting about what you see in congress is the objections seem to be mostly about process, hey, we werent...