Voting Present - On Libya

Muammar Gadaffi is a brutal dictator involved in the murder of Americans and American service members. He has been known to have a weapons of mass destruction program in the past. Most recently he has ordered mercenaries to gun down protesters in his own country. Obama finally got around to saying something, even though he was much quicker to jump into the Mubarak controversy in Egypt. Thank God, five days from now, he will be sending Hillary Clinton to Geneva to discuss whether the murders might be human rights violations. I'm sure that got Gadaffi's attention.

If you recall, after the Berlin discotheque bombing in 1986 in which we had evidence of Libyan involvement, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Tripoli that almost killed Gadaffi. From Wikipedia:

The air strike killed 45 Libyan soldiers and government officials, and 15 civilians. Forewarned by a telephone call from Malta's Prime Minister, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, that unauthorized aircraft were flying over Maltese airspace heading south towards Tripoli, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his family rushed out of their residence in the Bab al-Azizia compound moments before the bombs dropped. Gaddafi escaped injury but his 15-month-old adopted daughter Hanna was killed, and two of his sons were injured.^[8] However, according to Giulio Andreotti and Abdel Rahman Shalgham, it was Bettino Craxi who warned Gaddafi.

Obama could make a real impact if he merely stated that Gadaffi will be prosecuted for crimes against humanity if the carnage continues. Such a threat might reduce the violence, allegedly Obama's goal.

So whatever happened to the whole Obama hearts Reagan thing. Nothing like a real crisis to reveal a leader's true colors.

I don't think so, and what he's learned from him? Nada.

Here is what the great man himself had to say:

Still Voting Present

I guess old habits are hard to break, like voting present. The Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich is under indictment, but refusing to resign. As I posted earlier, the Illinois house is no hurry to remove the governor through impeachment. So what can be done to prevent this sleazeball from making a senate appointment? The constitution gives the state legislature the authority to grant the governor the appointment power and they could rescind it and call a special election to fill the vacant seat.
From the 17th amendment:

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

In my humble opinion, rescinding the governor's authority and holding a special election is the fast and constitutional method for the legislature to avoid a bigger mess in Illinois. Our man was asked his opinion about a special election to fill his old seat:

Obama was pulled into the dispute Tuesday when the president-elect refused to say whether he supports a special election.

This is a continuation of Obama's record in the Illinois state senate, where he voted present 130 times in his short tenure there. He continued his trend in the United States Senate, repeatedly not voting, see the official record. (I started to count up the numbers, but got exhausted.) This also continues a trend of partisanship, of never wanting to endorse anything the Democratic establishment is against.

Hopefully, he won't be faced with any decisions as tough as whether to hold a special election after he is sworn in on January 20th.