With all the flak Obama was taking a week ago for his go-slow approach on Libya — and all the phony bouquets for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's handling of the crisis — you might have been tempted to think that she was the one who had green-lighted missile strikes on Muammar Qaddafi, and Obama was the senator who had once voted to invade Iraq with no provocation and no exit strategy.
It's an irony lost on the "do something" caucus that hounded Obama for weeks while he pressed for the approval of the U.N. Security Council, Arab League and NATO before striking in Libya.
Sarah Palin demanded "less dithering." Rudy Giuliani said that "Hillary Clinton would have been better." Newt Gingrich called Obama the "spectator-in-chief" before Obama committed to the mission, then flip-flopped and said, "I would not have intervened." And after U.S. missiles had already started hitting Libyan targets last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Obama "unnervingly indecisive," quipping, "I'm glad we're finally doing something … thank God for strong women in the Obama administration."
You can trace it all back to Clinton's own "3 a.m." riff. She was the first one who tried to paint her boss as a weak-kneed dove and not the president who wound up doubling down in Afghanistan.
Which is how the debate over the U.S. role in the U.N. mission got so skewed. A lot of people weren't prepared for Obama to come out shooting.
Going split-screen with air strikes and a high-profile trade mission to Brazil was the kind of impassive, all-business play that is more often associated with China's leaders, not ours (even if China is just waiting around to lock up oil leases in Libya — no matter which faction ultimately wins).
The Arab League, accustomed to condemning Western intervention in the Middle East, came hat in hand, petitioning for a strike against one of its own members. French pilots, usually on the ground, blew up the first Libyan tanks. The British, nothing if not ever ready, worried about running out of missiles.
Anti-war Democrats have teamed up with paleo-cons to challenge the president's legal authority to act in Libya — Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) says Obama could be impeached for striking without congressional approval — while Republicans in Congress are getting out-hawked by Obama, with even House Speaker John Boehner eschewing partisan rhetoric by sending the president an unimpeachably businesslike letter asking for the "scope, objective, and purpose of our mission in Libya, and how it will be achieved."
And the Congressional Black Caucus is split along the same lines. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is in the "dithering" camp; progressive Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), CBC chair emeritus, is against the strikes; and Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.), on the Africa subcommittee, reluctantly backs Obama.
But while Obama's policy can certainly be questioned, there's nothing indecisive or unusual about it. It says more about the nature of being president than it does about him. A multilateral strike is nothing Presidents Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton or Bush 43 didn't do. Obama's wrinkle — doing it with minimal fanfare — is really a nod toward Teddy Roosevelt's enduring admonition to "Speak softly and carry a big stick."
With everyone off-kilter, it's taken longer for the real war debate — what are we doing, why are we doing it and how do we get out? — to get off the ground. But if the real conservatives could ever get the fake ones to quit squawking about Obama's nerve, they'd get to it a lot quicker.
Up to now, 60 percent of Americans back military action in Libya, but only 49 percent think it's worth the cost, and only 17 percent call Obama "strong and decisive." There's still an ambivalence about going into a third Mideast war while we're mired in a recession. In one sense, the country as a whole caught up with the perspective of African Americans and Native Americans — who are overrepresented in military ranks, but who overwhelmingly expressed reluctance about the Iraq War from the start.
So when Obama finally addresses the nation — and you know that's probably coming — he can't just say that Qaddafi is a bad guy. We know that. He has to convince us that it's our job — and explain why it's in our interest — to oust Qaddafi. And if it's purely a mission to prevent a bloodbath, Obama should tell us now what we gain if any American service members' lives are lost.
And in that staccato Obama tone, he should level with folks: "Look, you can stop getting mixed up in other countries' fights if you want. But then you're just a power. You're not a superpower."
Despite the fretting over Obama's strategic resolve, it turns out he got the right answer on one of the most important questions about taking sides in Libya's civil war: The U.S. can't afford to go in alone, invade and occupy an Arab country, and then take the rap for unintended consequences. And with NATO poised to take command, there's a chance Obama can make good on getting out before things break bad. But what Obama hasn't done yet is help Americans answer the most important question: why we got into this war at all.
David Swerdlick is a regular contributor to The Root. Follow him on Twitter.
David Swerdlick is an associate editor at The Root. Follow him on Twitter.