good. i had georgetown winning that game in my bracket, so we are all hurting here. [laughter] that s what next year is for. we meet here at a ta mull tw ats time for the world. in a matter of months we ve seen regimes topple, we ve seen democracy take root in north africa and in the middle east. we ve witnessed a terrible earthquake, a catastrophic tsunami, a nuclear emergency that has battered one of our strongest allies and closes friends in the world s third largest economy. we ve led an international effort in libya to prevent a massacre and maintain stability throughout the broader region.
people. there was no waiting for the french to lead us as sarah palin has imagined. but she is not the tea partier who is most confused by libya. that prize goes to the new tea party senator, rand paul. senator paul took to youtube last night to respond to the president s speech. in 2007, then candidate obama said that the president does not have power under the constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. i agree with the candidate obama. unfortunately, president obama has failed to heed his own advice. he has ignored our constitution and engaged us in a military conflict without congressional debate and approval. while the president is the commander of our armed forces, he is not a king. he may involve those forces in military conflict only when authorized by congress or in
himself. it s how the president acts, how he handles himself. how the american people perceive him rather than others. there is another poll more troubling for president obama. the gallop poll says that the percentage of people who call him strong and decisive is today 52%. that is down from 60% a year ago and 73% shortly after he came into office. now whether you agree with the president or not, you know, americans want to feel their president is strong and decisive. so even if there are a lot of people why they might not be inclined to be for the president if they see him decisive it at lease mitigates opposition to him. the president s downward number in being seen as throng and decisive is a problem. he s added to the problem with a muddled and confusing and contradictory way he has handled libya. jon: in this quinnipiac poll 48% of democrats indicated support for the president over the libya
retaliates by being a terrorist again, how do you handle that? the point is that obama has stepped ankle deep into quicksand and if everything works out fine, qaddafi goes, there s no more civil war and libya is a nice secular, moderate democracy, then he s ok. but any other outcome, colin powell said it best, you break it. you own it. no kidding. when you take leadership like the president did the other night, you do own the situation now so we all hope as americans there is a great master plan here. talking about americans, let s look at the polls and see how the people feel about president obama handling the situation in libya. so 44% approve. ironically, 44% disapprove as well. and 12% have no opinion. now, this is a recent poll. this is done between march 25th and 27th. that differs from how the american people felt, dick, originally when america first went into libya maybe 10, 12 days ago. it was a higher approval rating. what s that say to you? yeah, it was 57% and i ll bet
al-qaida, islamic militants. whenever i ve spoke tone rebels either in the east or in misra misrata, or in a tribal area in the west that is under rebel control and they are getting their public relations act together and speaking to the press, they really harshly deny that. i spoke to one rebel spokesperson who said we are doctors, lawyers, engineers, retired people. there may be a few islamic activists among us but we hate al-qaida and we reject them. jenna: what is your gut check on that do you believe them. reporter: yeah, libya is like the rest of the world. you have all sorts of political denominations. there s been a move towards islamic pie a tee in recent years. there might be extremists among them. most ordinary libyans of this stripe reject al-qaida and the whole philosophy of al-qaida is opposed to this kind of popular uprising. jenna: invaluable perspective as