Hillary Clinton to Libya skeptics: 'Whose side are you on?'

Let’s play “What if President Bush said this?”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is questioning the priorities of lawmakers criticizing the U.S. intervention in Libya.

She’s asking bluntly, “Whose side are you on?”

Setting up a showdown on Libya, House Republicans agreed Wednesday to vote on dueling measures, one to give President Barack Obama limited authority to continue U.S. involvement in the NATO-led operation against Moammar Gadhafi and the other to cut off funds for military hostilities.

Democrats spent the entirety of the Bush years slamming every move he made, and they eventually nominated and elected the most vocal war critic to become president. During all of those years, Democrats referred over and over again to a line President Bush spoke within days of 9-11 — “You’re either with us or against us in the war against terrorism.” Rejecting that line and the man who spoke it as he led a war for our survival, the Democrats slammed and slammed and slammed him. George Lucas even wrote a version of that line into one of his abysmal Star Wars prequels. That’s how much the left made of that one line.

Now, the Secretary of State is asking Congress, which is mostly just trying to remind the administration that it doesn’t have imperial powers to go to war whenever and wherever it feels like and no matter the cost or implications to national security, “Whose side are you on?” Way to bring people together, top diplomat! You know, they told me that if I voted for John McCain, we would have a heavy handed government stifling reasonable dissent — and they were right!

This obviously isn’t an idle statement, either, but part of the Obama administration’s pushback as Libya spirals into a mess: spokesman Jay Carney told skeptics to watch what they say about Libya last week.

This bunch would have positively melted down if they had been on the receiving end of the abuse they hurled at President Bush.

More: Thanks to commenter Black Sabbath —

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
– Senator Barack Hussein Obama. December 20, 2007.

“We are currently doing everything we can to bomb, strafe and use missiles to carry the rebels into power in Libya. We want them to win. We just don’t know who they are.” Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Most of you know that I opposed this war from the start. I thought it was a tragic mistake,” Obama said to a crowd at the Springfield, Illinois town square on Feb. 10, 2007.

“Today we grieve for the families who have lost loved ones, the hearts that have been broken and the young lives that could have been. America it is time to start bringing our troops home. It’s time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else’s civil war. That’s why I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008.” Barack Hussein Obama.

Whose side was he on?