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Buzz Cut: Libya debacle casts shadow on Obama war plan Cruz forward: 2016 GOP Power Index Power Play: Goodlatte lays out House immigration plan The campaign without a candidate rolls on Hey, its been very cold lately

LIBYA DEBACLE CASTS SHADOW ON OBAMA WAR PLAN President Obama had better leave some blank spaces in the next draft of his proposal to Congress for a right-sized war to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Key U.S. ally Egypt has now bombed ISIS targets in Libya, which is some 700 miles away from what we were are told is theater of war a distance about the same as that between Pittsburgh and Savannah. (So at least now you know who not to ask for directions.) In the spirit of baseball spring training, maybe the updated version can just say Iraq, Syria, Libya and nations to be named later But before we get to the issue of Egypt bombing an ISIS affiliate in Libya in reprisal for the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians, we might do well to consider how we ended up with an ISIS affiliate in Libya anyway.

[The president is asking for less authority than he has today under previous authorizations. And I dont believe what the president sent here gives him the flexibility, or the authority, to take on this enemy and to win. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Watch here.]

What a difference - Four years ago today, the chatter was also all about Egypt and Libya, but the news was very different. In Egypt, the country was in turmoil in the wake of President Hosni Mubaraks resignation five days earlier under intense pressure from Obama. But the big news was in Libya, where the rebellion against dictator Muammar Qaddafi had just gotten underway the night before in the city of Benghazi. Within 10 days, both Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would call for regime change in Libya. The U.S. would join the civil war on the side of the rebels about a month later. Eighteen months after that, Islamist militants would attack and destroy a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, the city where the rebellion began. Each passing month would bring worse news from Libya as the Islamists who fought in the rebellion took more control over and eventually suffocated the fledgling Western-backed government.

[The presidents outlined a very precise use of our force White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough in an interview with CBS News.]

Bad call - Things looked to be going in the same direction for a time in Egypt. The moderate Islamists who took control after Mubaraks ouster proved to be not-so-moderate after all. As the largest Arab nation was careening toward disaster, U.S. allies in the region successfully pressured the Obama administration to back a restoration last year of the same kind of government Obama had helped unseat four years ago. Libya today is a nightmare state and Egypt is back under the control of the military. It may sound like madness, but dont forget how deeply (and as it would turn out, wrongly) the world swooned at the idea of what was then known as the Arab Spring. The Obama administration took an aggressive stance on the unfolding revolutionary movement that has left the region in even deeper chaos. How real are the chances that the president will again be part of a coalition to strike Libya, but this time against some of the same factions he previously supported? Well, the U.S. is now coordinating with the regime in Syria it once threatened to attack, so never say never.

WITH YOURSECOND CUP OF COFFEE...None of our 44 presidents was born on this day. But in deference to ease of scheduling and partly a desire to avoid political offense, todays federal holiday has been widely known as Presidents Day since 1971. It is still technically recorded as George Washingtons Birthday (which is actually Feb. 22), but the popular understanding is that todays holiday honors all presidents. Any event that celebrates Franklin Peirce and Woodrow Wilson equally to Washington and Abraham Lincoln can truly be said to celebrate nothing. So whats the point? Why, a day off, of course. And for decades, Americans have used the extra day to go car shopping. Auto sales surgeby about 25 percent every Presidents Day weekend. But before it was cars, it was bicycles. The Atlantic examines the largely lost, Gilded Age history of how bicycles helped make the holiday into a mercantile moment for the nation.

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POLL CHECK Real Clear Politics Averages Obama Job Approval: Approve 45.2 percent//Disapprove 50.2 percent Direction of Country: Right Direction 35.1 percent//Wrong Track 56.8 percent

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Libya debacle casts shadow on Obama war plan