The crisis in Libya has brought to light many contradictions previously hidden, for which we can all be grateful. Ever since Barack Obama unveiled his multilateral approach to world order on the campaign trail, he has been greeted with considerably more admiration than alarm across the political spectrum. On a whole host of subjects – from restraining unilteral executive power to “realism” in the conduct of foreign policy – progressives have argued that their man will restore a benign order to the universe. If post-partisan unity was his banner at home, post-national unity would be his banner abroad. Even the president’s temperament and background have been adduced to corroborate this claim. Much was made of the time he spent during his boyhood on foreign soil. Much was made, too, of his vast global appeal. While a war of liberation (admittedly not waged for humanitarian reasons alone) inflamed the ire of quasi-isolationists for “building firehouses in Baghdad instead of New Orleans” (in John Kerry’s infamous coinage), Obama’s anti-war politics sprung not from his provincialism, but from his worldliness. He would “restore America’s reputation” because, as he reminded his audience in Cairo, his middle name was “Hussein” and he had experienced Islam on three continents. Bereft this entire cosmopolitan scaffolding, dutifully upheld by throngs of admirers, he would have never “earned” the Nobel Peace Prize.

The depradations of a lunatic tyrant in Tripoli has turned all this on its head. The diffidence that initially greeted the rebellion in Libya was to be expected from a White House with little use for power, let alone a purpose to guide it, in the world. As were the liberal apologists who hastened to its defense. They put forth arguments that a vicious repression of the rebellion did not involve American interests. Some more clever observers claimed that Western intervention could only disfigure the rebellion with an imperial taint. At which point – for reasons unexpressed but not entirely unknown – President Obama decided to act to save Benghazi. In these circumstances, one might expect those staunch critics of intervention to repudiate the activist foreign policy embraced by this administration, or at least have the good sense to fall silent. Instead, they have performed a remarkable volte face. After vowing to oppose intervention for the harm it would do to America or to the rebels (or both), it has made the most labored excuses for the president’s “war of choice.” There have been principled exceptions to this rule, yet it is clear that Newt Gingrich is by no means alone in allowing partisan affiliation to shape, or distort, moral and strategic concern. For shame.