So I'm gone for a week and when I come back, a whole war has disappeared!

After Barack Obama's attempted defense of his Libyan War, I made the comment on the air that the media was going to have to work overtime to not make this action look like the giant hypocritical mess that it is.  One way they would do that, I posited, was to wipe it from the headlines.

Obama himself laid the foundation for this by claiming that we would be transferring control of the operation over to NATO.  Even liberal comedian Jon Stewart saw through that ruse by exclaiming, "We are NATO!"  He's right.  The lead commander of NATO forces is always American and we are footing the vast majority of the bill.  It's American might, American forces, American bombs, American firepower, American resources, American tax dollars, and American resolve that is fueling action there...even if it is hiding under the NATO banner.

But like the dutiful lapdogs that they are, the media has followed the template.  The Libyan War is nowhere to be seen.  And maybe that's because it's a mess over there.  Mark Steyn details what I mean:

What with all the budget talk, I was just wondering whether that third war - or kinetic scope-limited whachamacallit - was still going. You remember, it was in all the papers for a couple of days. So I guess things have gone quiet because it's all wrapped up now? Apparently not:

 

NATO has said it strongly regrets the loss of life after a "friendly fire" attack on rebel tanks in eastern Libya which left at least four dead.

 

Earlier, a Nato commander had refused to apologise, saying that until Thursday's strike, the alliance had not been aware the rebels had tanks.

 

Ah. Well, these things happen between allies, especially when allies in the air aren't aware their allies on the ground have tanks. But how about the general outlook?

 

The battle for Libya is heading for deadlock, a top general said Thursday.

 

U.S. Gen. Carter Ham, who led the coalition air campaign in Libya before NATO took over last week, said it was unlikely the Libyan rebels could beat Col. Moammar Khadafy.

 

Asked at a Senate hearing about the chances that the rebels could reach Tripoli and oust Khadafy, Ham said, "I would assess that as a low likelihood."

 

He said the situation was becoming a stalemate.

 

As I wrote a week ago:

 

The Tunisians got rid of Ben Ali in nothing flat, Mubarak took a couple of weeks longer to hit the road, and an exciting new ?Islamic Emirate' has just been proclaimed in South Yemen. But, with his usual unerring instinct, Barack Obama has chosen to back the one Arab liberation movement who can't get rid of the local strongman even when you lend them every functioning NATO air force.

That's a bit unfair on the poor old rebels. But, if you wanted to devise a forlorn emblem of the impotence of the hyperpower, this non-war for non-victory is hard to beat.  

The media worked overtime to make Afghanistan and Iraq into quagmires.  They trumpeted every death, every setback, every struggle in their ongoing effort to defeat President Bush.  Now, they have the perfect example of American presidential incompetence, a flailing Commander-in-Chief leading a confusing, bizarre military operation with no real purpose.  And they're silent.

If Obama can't win re-election with this media working for him 24/7, it will put an exclamation point on how unfit for this office he truly was.