Confirming earlier findings, Rasmussen’s new poll (via Scoblete) on Libya shows that a large majority favors leaving the situation in Libya alone. Even among Republicans, the “leave alone” option outscores “more directly involved” by almost two-to-one (56-29%). This is worth noting when we see that just 23% of Republicans approve of Obama’s handling of Libya. 75% of Republicans rate Obama’s response as fair or poor (with 40% saying poor), but of those just over a third want a more interventionist response from Obama. 59% of independents rate Obama’s response as fair or poor (45/14%), but just 26% believe the U.S. should be more directly involved and 52% want the U.S. to leave the situation alone. There is no national consensus in support of intervention, and instead there seems to be a strong national consensus against getting involved. A significant percentage of the public finds Obama’s response dissatisfying in some way, but fewer than one in three find fault with Obama because his response has been too passive or inactive.
The only thing that bothers me about Obama’s handling of the various revolutions occurring in the Mid-East and North Africa is that he feels compelled to say something about each. In the meantime, the Russians say nothing, and the Russian foreign minister says the events in Libya are strictly an internal matter for the Libyans to decide among themselves. What an adult attitude. Why can’t the U.S. take a similar stance? When we were engaged in our great Civil War (or the War Between the States, to make Jack Hunter happy), the bloodiest conflict in our history (at least as measured by the American loss of life), the Lincoln Administration exerted great diplomatic efforts to keep foreign countries out of our internal conflict and was largely successful. For some reason, the rule we applied to our civil war we have a difficulty in following when it comes to other countries.