WSJ Opinion Journal on Obama's Kinetic Military Action

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Obama KLAMs Up
The World's Greatest Orator is the worst communicator of recent times.

By JAMES TARANTO

(Best of the tube this weekend: We'll be on the political panel of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," 7 p.m. ET tonight on Fox Business Network, and discussing Libya and Wisconsin on "The Journal Editorial Report," 2 and 11 p.m. ET Saturday on Fox News Channel.)

Gallup found a striking result in a survey this week: Only 47% of American adults approve of "the current U.S. military actions against Libya." That is a plurality (37% disapprove), but it is also the lowest proportion at the outset of any military action of the past three decades. Even the second-least-popular, Kosovo in 1999, had majority (51%) approval.

Here's a number that should be worrying the president's political team: While majorities of both Democrats (51%) and Republicans (57%) approve of the Libya action, only 38% of independents do, vs. a 44% plurality who disapprove.

By contrast, when Ronald Reagan bombed Tripoli in 1986, 71% approved. To be sure, lots of today's adults hadn't even been born then, but it's hard to believe those young voters, who supported Barack Obama so ardently, were unmoved by the president's speech the other day in which, among other things, he rehearsed Moammar Gadhafi's history of terrorism against Americans.

Haha, we're pulling your leg! Actually, it's easy to believe, because Obama gave no such speech. His administration is speaking with many voices, including that of national security aide Ben Rhodes, who, as the Washington Examiner reports, memorably described the Libya campaign not as war but as "kinetic military action."

In fairness, this ridiculous bit of jargon is not an Obama-era coinage; Bushies were using it way back in 2002, as Slate smart aleck Tim Noah noted at the time. In unfairness--and in honor of France's leadership--we are going to start referring to the Libya effort by the Frenglish acronym KLAM, for Kinetic Libyan Action Militaire.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that Obama speech. Politico reports that the president is clamming up about the KLAM:
Obama is resisting pressure to deliver an Oval Office speech explaining his policy on Libya--in part, because he doesn't want to equate what he regards as a smaller, time-limited mission with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Administration officials haven't ruled out a big speech, but Obama is reluctant to make a major address on Libya until the United States hands over most command and combat duties to its allies.
That's not to say the president won't talk about Libya over the next few days, aides say, but he's not likely to succumb to pressure to deliver a long, explanatory address to outline his elusive endgame to the nation until the path ahead becomes clearer.

What makes this such a head-scratcher is that Obama was supposed to be the World's Greatest Orator. The other day at lunch, a Brazilian lady observed that the president had been a big hit in her country, because "he's so well-spoken." This made us incredulous until we jogged our memory and remembered that, oh yes, they used to say that about him here too.

And it's true that Obama is good at expounding sweet nothings: One America, two America, red America, blue America, that sort of thing. His 2004 Democratic National Convention speech and his 2011 Tucson memorial speech were memorably good. The crowds in Rio probably got something similar.

Obama's indifferent performance in taking the country to war--sorry, to KLAM--can be explained by his indifference to the topic. By all accounts, he followed the lead of Hillary Clinton and her kettle of hawk hens, just as America followed the lead of the French, the British and the Arab League.

But Obama cared about ObamaCare, and he couldn't sell the public on that either. Has he ever managed to convince anyone of anything of substance?