Speaking Monday evening from Fort McNair, President Barack Obama sought to champion the “historic” US war in Libya to the American public. One day after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates informed Americans that the war was not a “vital interest,” President Obama was insisting that it also wasn’t in America’s interest to not attack Libya.

He sought simultaneously to mock those who rejected the war as expensive and unnecessary, insisting that not attacking Libya would be a “betrayal of who we are,” while trying to position his role as the moderate one. The message is that the Obama Administration is attacking Libya just a little bit, instead of the massive war a handful of senators advocate.