Yeah.

Obviously you and I don't agree on politics in general or President Obama in particular, most of the time. But I always was wary of Obama's lack of national governing experience. He was running for president of the United States just a couple of years out of the Illinois legislature, and by all accounts, he was not a major player in the Illinois legislature. I'd have preferred to see him finish a U.S. Senate term -- learn more about domestic and foreign affairs -- get a little older, a little wiser and a little braver about standing up to his advisers when necessary.

By the same token, I don't see how serving half a term as governor of Alaska prepares Sarah Palin to be a serious candidate for the presidency.

NPR this morning reported that CIA teams already are in the desert in Libya, working with the various rebel groups. We have boots on the ground. But Defense Secretary Gates told Congress yesterday that it isn't our mission to topple Qaddafi, although we wouldn't mind if, eh, if someone else did it.

How's that no-quagmire workin' out for ya?

I wouldn't classify the CIA as "boots." More like Gucci loafers.

Har! Gucci loafers in the sand.

Still. Sending in the CIA does not sound like we're making a short-term, casual effort. It sounds like we're stepping it up.

Like I said, when we start sending kids over there who are being paid $20K a year, I'll agree with you.

Afghanistan started with few troops on the ground too, but things evolve over time and administrations.

Fine thanks. That doesn't sound like a quagmire to me.
Still, it could get worse, and in hindsight, I wish I'd only said there may be no quagmire, rather than... oh wait...

Snark aside, while I do think Obama should stick strictly to his original commitment and not send in advisers or whatever, I agree with Allen that that doesn't really qualify as a quagmire. If you guys start occupying the place, that's a different story.

But really, that wasn't our disagreement.

Afghanistan started with few troops because that (and OBL) wasn't BushJr's real objective.

The New York Times today reports that President Obama -- as represented by his secretaries of state and defense in testimony to Congress -- now opposes sending weapons and advisers to the Libyan rebels.

If anyone sends weapons and advisers, it should be the French, not us, said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, not adding "since they seem so friggin' keyed up about it."

I will feel slightly better about this if we don't deepen our involvement.

Still, we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars bombing the place, and it's not clear who our allies are or how far we're prepared to go on their behalf. Gates also told Congress this week that it's not the U.S. objective to take down Qaddafi. I think that's pretty clearly our objective.

On a semi-related note: Is it just me, or in the past month, has everyone in the Western world started to disagree on how to spell the name of the Libyan dictator? Depending on which American newspaper I see, it's spelled one of three different ways, to say nothing of the foreign press.

The multiple spellings of Quadaffi's name is an old SNL News bit from the 80's. They do a roll of probably twenty or so and then things like "Kadaffy Duck" start showing up. It's probably on YouTube.