Strange Standards

I had to laugh at this.

In a statement issued late Sunday, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said they regretted that "this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower."

"Ultimately, our intervention in Libya will be judged a success or failure based not on the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, but on the political order that emerges in its place," the two senators said.

"Ultimately, our intervention in Libya will be judged a success or failure based not on the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, but on the political order that emerges in its place," the two senators said.

 Look, I get that Republicans don't want to credit any part of the successes in Libya to the United States, and by extension, President Obama, especially with an election coming up.  But the degree to which they're abstaining from crediting our role is ridiculous.

Never mind the fact that the NATO forces were literally running out of targets in Libya.  The double standard here is breathtaking.    Remember that the rebellion in Libya began in Feburary, and apparently is concluding in September, an impressive timeline.  I don't pretend to know what happens next-probably nobody does.  But without the loss of American lives, compared to Iraq and Afghanistan, this has been a resounding success.

Yet by the good Senators' standards, this isn't good enough.  No, we have to wait and see what happens next.  Fine, maybe that's a fair standard, but certainly not one they held President Bush to as he invaded two countries, both which still are ongoing, incidentally, costing us billions of dollars and many lost lives.