Damned if you do, damned if you don't 3/28, 6:30 pm.

Instead of listening to President Obama's descriptions of the situation in Libya I am going to take the questionable elder's semi- right to "say the obvious." Mr. Obama's speech at the Novel Prize ceremony has already set the stage for what he has said earlier and will say again this evening. War is hell, contradictory and full of devastating compromises, including the death of so many women and children and elderly who do not make the news. As a "centralist" our Commander-in-Chief has to drive what to most people will not be an equatable position.

Following in on eight years of Bush and a foreign policy based upon questionable foreign adventures during and since the so-called Spanish American War, the "empire strikes back," lots of money and blood is spent, and we hope to shift part of the guilt & battle ribbons to NATO and our other partners abroad. And what if our President had not done what he did, what would the hawks and their many accomplices have said and done? Would they have dwelled on the probable victims in their denunciations of a soft foreign policy?

I have at times felt "sorry" for President Obama, it seems that he has inherited even more contradictions and problems than George Bush did. But his record is not good so far in dealing with the hands he has been dealt, including the advisers he has chosen to make his way through to another term. Our former Vice President, Dick Cheney, said in a moment of his usual "candor" that Mr. Obama will be a one term president. "Damned it you do, damned if you don't." War is Peace.