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Acknowledging his own extramarital affairs will be an issue in the coming campaign. on fox news sunday he was asked about his involvement in the impeachment of former president bill clinton and whether he should be throwing stones. gingrich said his main objection to president clinton s behavior was his perjury in federal court, which gingrich described as a felony. president obama facing no shortage of challenges here at home. they include criticism from both his party and the republicans concerning u.s. involvement in libya. military involvement specifically. now, tonight, the president will speak directly to the american people to spell out the reasons that we re there. and could this be a pivotal moment in his presidency? let s put that question to two of our guests from west newton, massachusetts, and the presidential historian and the author of the book team of rivals: the political genius of abraham lincoln among many other books. doris, good to see you. and joining me here ....
Nick? the fact he disagrees with his own defense secretary robert gates who says there s no vital interest in getting involved with libya. well, i think doris is right. typically in the presidency, there s a narrative to decisions, an arc and story telling. he needs to give a little of that narrative. he s never really since the protests in egypt began and tunisia, he s never really spoken to the american people and filled in the blanks for us. in the last couple of weeks, we ve seen his leadership tested. japan, egypt, and libya. and it is a week later. typically when presidents use force, they go on air within 48 hours. sometimes that night and explain it. it s a little bit later. he ll have to fill in some of those blanks a week later. he can do it, though. doris, your book talks about how president lincoln assembled a group of people who really could have been best described as rivals. in this case, the team of people who didn t agree with military intervention into libya, in ....
Are not really rivals, but how does president obama need to address that? well, i think it s very healthy on the one hand to have people in your inner circle who argue against your assumptions so you re taking all things into consideration. nothing will be as tough as it was for lincoln who the majority of his cabinet feared it might lead to war. and the old story went that six people are against it, one is for it. the one has it because the one is the president. good point. this isn t as bad as that. nick, in your book you often talk about moments, decision moments for presidents. many of them involve military decisions. this is actually the first big one for president obama. is this going to be pivotal in some fashion? or is this president obama in his cool, collected way doing business as usual? well, it is in a sense that the president there s two types of decisions. the long protracted decisions like health care reform, which he handled well in the auto ....
About, the arab league asked us to do. that s what the coalition was doing. and that s the military objective and the limited military objective. but the larger political objective, which he s already stated is the desire to see gadhafi go to make some sort of peaceful possibilities in the state of libya. and that will take economic sanctions, that will take the hope that the regime cracks. that will take a series. and that may take time. and i think he has to warn us. one thing fdr was so good at there s going to be setbacks before we finally get through, but we will get through. and i think he has to warn us this may take months even while this first no-fly zone was achieved in an incredibly short period of time. and nick, you ve studied the speeches the presidents have made. at least in modern times. they weren t covered by everybody. what is it that you think the president has to say? what do we have to hear? is there a tone he should be setting tonight? should it be authoritat ....