My rule of thumb about the deployment of U.S. military forces is that if there are very few or no casualties, then the American people quickly move on to other matters. The same thing applies to the Congress.
On Tuesday, the commander of NATO's military forces happened to be a witness at a Senate hearing, which allowed Senators in both parties to ask a series of questions about the U.S. military mission against Libya.
The back and forth made a good deal of news.
A day later, the same commander, Admiral James Stavridis, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee for a budget hearing, joined by the heads of the Northern and Southern commands.
Instead of following the lead of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, House members put Libya squarely on the back burner in favor of regular budget questions for the three military officers.
Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) spent his question time on non-Libya issues, as did the top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA).
Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) asked the Admiral about the impact of tight budgets in European countries on the readiness of NATO.
Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) asked the NORTHCOM brass about cooperation with Canadian military officials over the Vancouver Olympics and operations in the Arctic.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) asked about budget cuts in the Ground-based Midcourse Missile Defense (GMD) program.
Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-AZ) asked about drug running in Central America.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) both noted Libya at the outset of their remarks, but then quickly segued into questions about Afghanistan.
It wasn't until about 90 minutes into the hearing before Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) got into Libya for a direct question to the Admiral.
But after about 60 seconds, Coffman was then zipping off to another subject.
Yes, this same committee will have Defense Secretary Robert Gates before lawmakers on Thursday, so there will be plenty of questions on Libya at that time.
But if you were on vacation in Washington, D.C., and decided to take your kids and drop into this hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, you might be forgiven for having absolutely no idea that the U.S. and other NATO countries were bombing sites in Libya for eleven days.
Talk about what a difference a day makes. Yesterday, the Admiral was leading the news.
24 hours later, he was barely moving the News Meter.
