(Reuters) – Only 17 percent of Americans see President Barack Obama as a strong and decisive military leader, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the United States and its allies began bombing Libya.
Nearly half of those polled view Obama as a cautious and consultative commander-in-chief and more than a third see him as indecisive in military matters.
Obama was widely criticized in 2009 for his months-long consultations with senior aides and military chiefs on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Critics called it dithering, but he said such a big decision required careful deliberation. He eventually dispatched 30,000 more troops.
But Obama is facing mounting discontent among opposition Republicans and from within his own Democratic Party over the fuzzy aims of the U.S.-led mission in Libya and the lack of a clearly spelled-out exit strategy for U.S. forces.
If the Libya mission becomes a foreign policy mess, mixed with perceptions Obama is a weak military leader, it could spell trouble for him in the 2012 presidential election.
Yeah. I’m sure this will haunt him in 2012 just like smoking crack and hiring hookers haunted Marion Barry during his multiple campaigns and multiple wins in DC. People won’t give a rat’s ass how incompetent Obama was or how fickle his foreign policy was; they just think he’s cool so he’ll win again.
I mean, how the hell do you reconcile taking as long as Obama took to decide whether or not to take action against the drag queen in chief in Libya? Well, you don’t. And by the way, it was NOT in our national interest to engage our military there.
