Obama, Meet Obama -- EJ Dionne [View All]

[Donnachaidh]

http://truthout.org/obama-meet-obama/1301641200

Washington - Someone should introduce the Barack Obama who addressed the nation Monday on Libya to the Barack Obama who has been dancing around the edge of the budget fight.

In his Libya speech, Obama was clear, forceful and principled. Yes, there were some ambiguities but these were dictated by a genuinely uncertain situation on the ground, not by muddled thinking. The president made the case for a foreign policy rooted in morality yet also alive to the difficulties of acting wisely in an imperfect world that does not bend easily to one man's or one country's will.

On the budget, by contrast, it's hard to know what the president's bottom line is, what deals he would regard as reasonable, or when he will even join the fray.

The White House is so determined to keep the president antiseptically distant from the untidy wrangling on the budget that it will not even allow its allies in Congress cite the administration's own analyses of how harmful some of the Republican cuts would be. They can use the facts, but not let on that the administration put them together. What's up with this?

More at the link --