It took nearly six more months, but Libya’s Gadhafi (appears to be) dead

Back in May when Osama bin Laden was killed by a Navy Seals team that attacked his compound, I made the sarcastic crack that now Republican partisans would have to resort to using Moammar Gadhafi to hang around President Barack Obama’s neck.

OBAMA: Who's next?

After all, just a few days before bin Laden was killed, a U.S. attempt to kill Gadhafi had failed. So the ideologues would rant and rage about Obama’s incompetence in dealing with this threat to our national security.

WELL, NOW THEY can’t even make that argument.

For it seems that Gadhafi is dead – killed early Thursday by the forces that rose up in opposition in his country (with limited U.S. support), had taken control of much of the country and on Thursday gained control of Gadhafi’s hometown of Surt.

In the process, they captured him. Then, they shot him. Pictures of a Gadhafi-resembling man that supposedly were shot by one of his executioners using his cellular telephone, and those images are going to become as common as the ones from a five years ago that showed Saddam Hussein dangling from the end of a rope.

Personally, I’m not about to get all excited; particularly since I always thought of as Gadhafi as a third-rate leader whom our ideologues were eager to explode into a major threat. You can’t live your life in fear if there’s no one to demonize.

ALTHOUGH IN THIS guy’s case, we could never agree on whether his name in English should be spelled “Gadhafi,” “Quadafi” or “Khadafy” – just to name a few.

So who do we demonize now? I suppose we can now single out Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for abuse. That is, for those people who don’t want to go after Obama as the “anti-Christ.”

Because I’m sure they’re going to resent the fact that history will record that both bin Laden and Gadhafi were taken down in the same year – a year that falls within the Obama presidency.

Which means he will get credit for any efforts to build new nations in Afghanistan and Libya – when his ideological opposition wants him to get credit for nothing (and blame for all).

EVEN THOUGH THERE really is little reason to credit the United States for much of Thursday’s activity.

It makes me glad to know this particular killing didn’t take place under circumstances that would require the United States to take some sort of direct credit for it.

It will be much less likely to stir up resentment in other parts of the world – although I’m sure there are those who will find a way to blame our nation for it. There’s rarely any logic involved in instances such as this.

Maybe it’s because the world leaders in opposition to our nation are on the demise (Hussein, bin Laden, Gadhafi. Who’s next?). But I just can’t get too thrilled by Thursday’s events. I suspect many people will feel the same.

GADHAFI’S DEAD? THAT’S nice. Now change the channel to the World Series. Or perhaps they’d rather watch the Kardashian family reality show.

Which for all I know may become the new way of showing spite to Obama (on account of the fact that first lady Michelle recently said that the president does not approve of his daughters watching the show). Former Olympian-turned-stepfather Bruce Jenner may become more famed for making nasty cracks about Obama than anything he did in the Summer of ’76 in Montreal.

Personally, I’d say that thinking the Kardashians are tacky is a bonus point in Obama’s favor – moreso than anything that happened to Gadhafi.

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