Menendez: Obama must call Qaddafi a terrorist

Author: 
Andrew C. McCarthy

I was just watching Bret Baier's show on the Fox Freedom Agenda Channel, and he reported that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is urging President Obama to refer to Col. Qaddafi as a terrorist, in light of the fact that the Lockerbie bombing included victims from New Jersey.

I wholeheartedly agree, and hope the president will do this. I hope, though, that President Obama will thus also explain why he thought it was perfectly fine not only to maintain the Bush U.S. policy that Qaddafi was a valuable U.S. ally against terrorism but actually to have his State Department (under our new Qaddafi scourge, Hillary Clinton) contribute $400,000 to foundations run by Qaddafi's children. And lest there be any doubt, that contribution came after Qaddafi's son Saif -- recipient of half the State Department contribution -- escorted Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Baset al-Megrahi home to a hero's welcome after Qaddafi, with full U.S. knowledge, pressured the U.K. and Scotland to secure Megrahi's release.

I'm also hoping Sen. Menendez will be good enough to share with us whatever objections he made to the Bush policy of embracing Qaddafi, the Bush State Department policy of funding Qaddafi, and the Obama policy of shoveling U.S. taxpayer dollars into Qaddafi run "foundations." I somehow can't recall any, but I'm sure he'll enlighten us.