Did Krauthammer Do A 180º On U.S. Military Action After A Russian Invasion?

Krauthammer

Fox News' Charles Krauthammer argued that the Obama administration is “unwise” for taking all U.S. military action “off the table” in response to Russia's recent invasion into Ukraine -- an apparent 180º from his position on military action when Russia invaded Georgia during President Bush's tenure.

On the March 4 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier, Baier reported that in response to Russia's invasion of the Crimea region of Ukraine, “U.S. officials say they still see no scenario, no scenario, involving military action of any kind.” Fox contributor Krauthammer scoffed at the administration's stance against the use of military force, arguing “I think that's unwise to take everything off the table. What if there's a full-scale invasion all the way to Kiev? You're going to do nothing?” 

But when a strikingly similar scenario played out under the Bush administration in 2008 as Russian forces invaded the former Soviet state of Georgia, Krauthammer sang a much different tune about the use of U.S military force.

“There's nothing to be done militarily,” he declared in an August 2008 op-ed for Washington Post:

What is to be done? Let's be real. There's nothing to be done militarily. What we can do is alter Putin's cost-benefit calculations.

And three days prior to his op-ed, in a panel discussion on Special Report, Krauthammer similarly insisted that “obviously” there was nothing for the United States to do militarily: “Well, obviously it's beyond our control. The Russians are advancing. There is nothing that will stop them. We are not going to go to war over Georgia.” 

Krauthammer's change of heart is yet another example of Fox News commentators seizing the Russian military's invasion of Crimea as an opportunity to attack President Obama.