When we got back to D.C., it was apparent—in a way that you miss when you’re traveling—that we were not receiving the same benefit of the doubt that had greeted Reagan’s “kinetic military action” twenty-five years earlier. The Republicans who had demanded that we put a no-fly zone in place now shifted the goalposts, demanding that we do more to “win” in Libya. The left was nervous about another war in the Middle East. Critics on both sides were bemoaning the fact that we weren’t seeking congressional authorization, even though there was no way that a Republican House would pass it if we did.
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