There is no 'anti-war' movement to speak of, just anti-Bush

In response to MSNBC Viewers Vote For Obama To Bypass Congress On Military Action Against ISIS:

88% of the MSNBC audience pronouncing itself comfortable with unilateral Obama war, with a symbolic nod toward the Bush congressional authorization of force that Obama campaigned on voting against, is mildly amusing, but it shouldn’t be surprising.  They’re not being hypocritical now; they were being dishonest back then.  

They’re not, and never were, “anti-war” – that was all vain ideological posturing to cover naked partisanship.  They”re anti-Bush.  That’s all it was ever about.  They’ll clap like baby seals while Obama gives a speech asserting his imperial power to wage endless military operations with no defined victory conditions or… what was the phrase liberals used to love?  Ah yes: exit strategy.  They won’t even think about asking Obama for his exit strategy.

They don’t care that this supposedly internationalist president, this Nobel Peace Prize-winning colossus who bestrides the world like a god, evidently didn’t check with anyone at all before he gave his speech last night.  By lunchtime of the following day, the UK said it’s not going to bomb ISIS in Syria, the Turks said we can’t use their air bases, the Russians told the UN it would be a violation of international law if Obama proceeds as planned, and the “moderate” Free Syrian Army Obama wants to arm admitted it has understandings with both ISIS and the Syrian franchise of old-school al-Qaeda.  

There have got to be mainstream-media lickspittles who are pausing in the middle of sugary blog posts praising Obama’s glorious speech to watch all this news scrolling down their Twitter feeds, and blinking dumbly at the flowery praise they just hammered out.  

In reality, George Bush was an accomplished leader who sought proper congressional authorization, was honest about the intelligence he had received, made a point of lining up a powerful international coalition, and had the strength of character to explicitly admit his mistakes when revising his Iraq strategy near the end of his second term.  Barack Obama is a careless dilettante who still has no idea what he’s doing, displays no leadership skills beyond a reasonable ability to read fiery speeches loaded into his teleprompter, and apparently thought the world would fall into line behind him after he finally came off the golf course and gave a big speech on ISIS to announce his “strategy.”  

But none of that will penetrate the bubble of the MSNBC audience, which cares about very little except the letter after the President’s name.  Unilateral warfare didn’t trouble them in Libya, and it won’t trouble them in Iraq, not when the President is a Democrat, especially this Democrat.  None of them cares about the disaster Obama made of Libya, and they won’t care what the Islamic State looks like in two years.