Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't - UPDATED

Is it me, or had the majority of the media and opposition political leaders been critical of President Obama for not leading in Libya for the last month?

Of course, I expected nothing but negative comments from the usual suspects. After all, they must oppose all things Obama to appease their radical base, therefore, no matter how the situation was handled, they had to express their disapproval ("Obama is weak, why is he waffling on Libya?"). But we also heard the same thing from the mainstream media which I found a little odd. I mean, aren't they all in Obama's pocket?

Then there's a UN resolution for a no fly zone and France takes military action first and we hear idiotic criticisms like "We are no longer leading in the world, even France beat us to the punch!" Well, you know what? I'm glad someone else took the lead for once. Why does it fall to the U.S. to police the world every time? At least now it looks like there's a coalition backed by the U.N., the Arab League and led by the French and British. Good for them!

And finally, the U.S. launches missiles taking out pro-Gaddafi communications and air defense in support of the U.N. resolution and to protect French and British allies, and now the criticism is how we're in a third war and everyone is acting as if it's unilateral (See MSNBC "How dare he go to Latin America looking to create jobs via exports during this time. Libya! Japan! IEEEE!"). Rep. Dennis Kucinich wanted Obama to approach Congress for permission when A) war was not declared and B) is he talking about the same Congress that can't get together on a budget? And Ralph "Uncle Tom" Nader crawled out from under his rock to say the President should be impeached for his action. Kucinich wondered about that action as well.

Does the cognitive dissonance not compute in these peoples' addled brains, or are they purposely looking for cooked up controversy to boost ratings and/or satisfy their ideological bases? This is obviously a rhetorical question.

And there's Obama thinking, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

UPDATE (3/22/11 11:45am): I've posted this as a comment but would like to add it here with a little embellishment.

Look, I'm not happy about using force in Libya. I don't think anyone should be happy about it. The U.S. military is already spread thin and spending billions in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the budget balancing Republican hacks who are in favor of our involvement in Libya don't bat an eye at those costs while attempting to cut education and medical assistance at home in the name of fiscal responsibility.

Yes, there are critical questions to be asked. If we're there in a humanitarian capacity then why didn't we engage in Darfur or Sudan? Or why don't we use force in Yemen now? I get that going into Libya may be an excuse because of strategic interests rather than humanitarian ones, and those are fair questions and thoughts.

But spare me the Obama bashing about whether he went in too soon, or too late, or didn't lead or that we're taking a back seat to France. Stop interviewing John McCain and Lindsey Graham for bashing from the right, and Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader for bashing from the left just to get a soundbite outside the norm to play on a loop. It just makes it seem all the more partisan and therefore completely disengaging.

UPDATE II (3/22/11 3:15pm): Here's Rachel Maddow's analysis on "Obama's war."