Bob Menendez Is Right: Qaddafi IS a Terrorist!

We do our fair share - and then some - of Senator Bob Menendez (D-La Raza) bashing, but we'll give him credit for being right for a change.

From his web page:

US Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee - released the following statement urging President Obama in his remarks to the country tonight to remind Americans about Muammar Qaddafi’s role in ordering the bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988. "

Qaddafi is a terrorist – the moral equivalent of Osama bin Laden – a man who ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270, including 34 New Jerseyans, and who in 2009 swapped a lucrative oil deal in exchange for the release of the convicted Pan Am bomber. A man President Ronald Reagan referred to as ‘this mad dog of the Middle East’ because of his relentless instigation of and support for terrorism. A man who has trained terrorists in North Africa and has proven that his reign of terror extends well beyond his own national and regional borders. A man who referred to the 1985 slaughter of innocent travelers, including an eleven-year-old American child, by terrorists at the Rome and Vienna airports as a ‘noble act.’ There is no question that, if given the chance, Qaddafi will continue to support terrorism and, therefore, continue to threaten Americans at home and abroad. That is why a Libyan no fly zone is not only in the interest of the international community, but is also in the national security interest of the United States.”

Ironically, if Obama had used some of this language last night (or earlier, had he been so inclined to talk to us plebes), he might find support for his Libyan war to be more robust. But Obama, the king of moral equivalence, no doubt sees gobs of it between Libya's historical atrocities and those "committed" by The Great Satan. He can no more raise Menendez's point than he can cut taxes, it goes so against his grain that even with the Teleprompter's urging, it is unlikely he can get the words out.

More's the pity. As Obama and the Democrats are about to find out, 2012 is going to be about moral clarity, on multiple issues. The days of fudging with fine oratory has passed. Will likely leave this particular president as a fish out of water, as details, facts, logic, and honesty are a wee bit out of his reach. And if Obama can get outflanked by the likes of a Ronald Reagan-quoting liberal like Bob Menendez on the issues of war and moral clarity, well, he's in way, way worse shape than I ever imagined...