McConnell: With Democrat in White House, Republican rift on wars more public

The top Republican in the Senate acknowledged Wednesday that partisanship has played a role in GOP opposition to President Obama on Libya.

“There’s more of a tendency to pull together when the guy in the White House is on your side,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader.

McConnell said Republicans are divided over U.S. military involvement overseas -- exposing opposition engagement that was “more latent” during the George W. Bush presidency.

“I think some of these views were probably held by some of my members even in the previous administration,” McConnell said. “Party loyalty tended to kind of mute them.”

Deepening fissures have emerged as House Republicans want to seriously scale back the military’s role while leading Senate Republicans, including John McCain, support a one-year congressional authorization of the use of forces.

“A lot of our members, not having a Republican in the White House, feel more free to kind of express their reservation, which might have been somewhat muted during the previous administration,” McConnell said during a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

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