Michael Walzer and Philip Gourevitch both have skeptical pieces newly out about President Obama's bombing of Libya. Mr. Gourevitch's article is in the New Yorker, Mr. Walzer's article is in The New Republic. Mr. Gourevitch observes that one of the leaders of the rebellion in Libya "is a man who served, until a few weeks ago, as Qaddafi's own Minister of Justice" and asks, "speaking of democracy, what about American public opinion? What about Congress? Is the Security Council the only place where this should be deliberated? What about some attempt by our Commander-in-Chief to advise and seek the consent of the electorate before we march into battle overseas?"
Jeffrey Goldberg, blogging at the Atlantic, is also skeptical: "I've been wondering just exactly why armed intervention in Libya is so urgently sought by the West, and why armed intervention in other places that are suffering from similar man-made disasters (Yemen, the Ivory Coast, and the big enchilada, Iran, to name three) is not."
I mention these three not because I always agree with them or even because I necessarily agree with them on Libya (which in any case is rather far afield from our usual subject matter here), but just because I think it's newsworthy that Obama has handled this in such a way that hasn't won over these folks, who aren't knee-jerk pacifists.