Chuck Todd decided on Libya and the toppling of Moammar Gaddafi‘s regime for the top spot because of how risky a move it was to take. Katty Kay disagreed because of how long the conflict took and how costly it was for the United States to enter into, and decided on the death of bin Laden as Obama’s best move.

“It was a kind of nothing-but-good-news moment for the president… competent execution, but it also inoculates him against any criticism, we’ve seen him use it, that he is in any way soft on terrorism.”

RELATED: President Obama: ‘Ask Osama Bin Laden Whether I Engage In Appeasement’

Kathleen Parker found herself stuck in a three-way tie between bin Laden, Iraq, and Libya, because she argued they were all part of Obama’s overall foreign policy agenda, which she described as “lacking of chestbeating.” Richard Stengel acknowledged the death of bin Laden was the easy choice to make, and argued that the withdrawal from Iraq was such a “colossal campaign promise” that to actually have accomplished it is a big victory for the president.

Matthews ended up agreeing and going with the Iraq withdrawal as well. The next category involved the Republican race for the presidency and which was the biggest turning point in the race. The nominees: Rick Perry‘s infamous “oops” moment, Chris Christie‘s decision to stay out of the race, Herman Cain‘s awkward moment of silence on Libya, or Mitt Romney starting to be more aggressive in his campaign, particularly in his battle with Newt Gingrich.

RELATED: Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne: Maybe It’s Time For The GOP To Draft A New Candidate

Parker gave it to Perry because of how defining a moment his verbal brain fart was in the campaign. Kay went with Romney instead because if Gingrich maintains the solid lead he’s built for himself, Romney’s attacks on him will become a major issue of the campaign as it progresses. Stengel agreed, and gave Gingrich credit for his impeccable timing in the race. Todd decided on Perry too, because he could have easily cornered the anti-establishment vote were it not for his verbal gaffes.

The International Criminal Court confirmed the arrest, and wants Gaddafi to be tried for “crimes against humanity, including murder, committed during the uprising.” CNN provides more details about the circumstances surrounding his capture.

Outbursts of celebratory gunfire, the honking of horns and cries of joy could be heard in Tripoli as reports of his capture spread.

Othman Mliegta, commander of the Al Qa’aq brigades, said he had been told that Saif al-Islam was slightly injured in the clashes that took place when the fighters attempted to capture him but is in good health.

A picture released by Libya’s National Transitional Council purportedly of Saif al-Islam appeared to show him half-lying on a low bed with bandages wrapped around the fingers of his right hand.

Members of the forces are publicly stating the son of the late dictator will be treated as any other detainee, and his immediate medical needs would be attended to. The transitional government is working to try Gaddafi and other former high-profile members of the dictatorship in-country for crimes against the people of Libya.

h/t CNN

The celebration of this particular administration is not something one regularly sees on the right-of-center opinion media program. Co-host Brian Kilmeade set the stage for Geraldo’s comment by skeptically reminding that the next phase in Libya “could be dangerous” before reminding his guest that the U.S.”didn’t take the lead,” adding “we never declared war!”

Rivera responded by asking “is that a bad thing that we didn’t take the lead?” adding “President Obama, whatever his failures are on the domestic side has proven to be one of our most efficient warrior leaders.” He then pointed out that this administration “has successfully taken out bin Laden, al-Awlaki, now Gaddhafi dead, cost us really chump change relatively speaking.”

The pendulum of opinion and partisan media usually swings both ways, and yesterday’s news of Gaddafi’s capture and killing was met with many GOP leaders seemingly giving praise to nearly everyone but Obama, with some notable exceptions. After getting called out for being petty, perhaps the right-of-center opiniotainers are looking to change their tactics in response to the Libya situation.

Watch the clip below, courtesy of Fox News:

Journalist Marisa Guthrie reports the explicit footage was taken by one of the rebels on his cell phone, according to Al Jazeera’s James Bays.

“Bays was reporting from Tripoli’s Green Square, where raucous celebrations were well underway,” reports Guthrie. “In the video, which takes place in Gadhafi’s home town of Sirte, the body is set upon by jubilant rebels.”

Warning: graphic content, watch the explicit video below:

RELATED: Video Reportedly Shows Gaddafi Was Captured Alive (NSFW)

Later, Reuters reported that Gaddafi had died of his wounds.

Gaddafi has been at large since the fall of Tripoli in August that saw Libyan rebels end the 42 year reign of the dictator, but was finally captured as the rebel forces took Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte. At this time, the US State Department has not confirmed Gaddafi’s capture or killing. According to the BBC, the dictator shouted, “Don’t shoot!” as he was mortally wounded.

Gaddafi’s capture and reported killing comes almost eight months to the day after President Obama publicly called for his ouster.

Here’s a brief clip of the Gaddafi reporting, from Morning Joe:

Was the headline a prank, an error in judgment, or…something in between? (*rimshot*)

American Prospect intern Jessica Stephens, who first TwitPic-ed the headline, tweeted, “Seriously? Nobody at the Washington f***ing Post saw a problem with this headline?”

A look at the AP story the headline references, though, cuts against this being a slip in judgment. Of the myriad meanings of the word “taint,” none really seems to fit the context of the article. My money is on some mischief-making headline writer who was trying to make the paper a perineal favorite.

FishbowlDC‘s Betsy Rothstein wisely decided not to touch Gaddafi’s taint with a ten-foot pole:

I don’t feel like getting fired today, so you’re going to have to check out the Urban Dictionary definition of “taint” here. As most of you filthy-minded readers already know, it concerns a certain unmentionable area on a man’s body.

This actually isn’t WaPo‘s first run-in with Gaddafi’s taint. Their Reliable Source blog (even that sounds dirty, now) posted an item in March about musicians’ “rush to dispose of Gaddafi-tainted money.”

Who can blame them?

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told the Jam-e-Jam newspaper that Iran has been sending aid to the rebels in support of them over the past few months.

“We were in touch with many of the rebel groups in Libya before the fall of (Moamer) Kadhafi, and discreetly dispatched three or four food and medical consignments to Benghazi.”

Salehi also claimed that the head of the NTC government in Libya sent a letter to Ahmedinejad thanking him for his support of their cause. Some might find Ahmedinejad’s support of freedom in Libya odd or even hypocritical, but there is no doubt he is committed to assisting the people in the region.

h/t AFP

Instead, they went with this striking illustration of Gaddafi being blown away, bit by bit, with the sands of time. Tim O’Brien, the man behind the cover, has an interesting run-down of process on his personal blog. “I liked this one because if he did not get an X, what could it be?” he writes.

Using a composite of images (a photo of himself for the hair included), he built an image that looked recent and showed little affectation. “In the end,” though, he writes, “I needed leess of him that [sic] usual.” He says he thought of “time running out on Gaddafi,” and so he sketched up a few hourglasses and began to play. “In doing this hourglass sketch I saw that he would work with his face as sand,” he writes.

There was a moment of fear, says O’Brien, when news of Wednesday’s earthquake broke just ahead of his deadline. In the end, though, his strong image insured that the Gaddafi story would be kept on the cover.

The Condoleezza Rice photo album discovered at Moammar Gaddafi‘s compound was just the tip of the eccentric iceberg. This week Libyans got an inside look at the Gaddafi family riches and helped themselves to whatever they could get their hands on.

According to the Washington Post, the smell of opulence wafts throughout all the Gaddafi homes. A villa belonging to son al-Saadi Gaddafi held several cars, including a BMW, an Audi, and a Toyota. The garage is decorated with a mural depicting a lavish sports car. There were also plans to purchase a yacht. But not just any yacht, a 7-million-euro yacht. That’s over ten million dollars. Gaddafi also had a soccer (sorry, football) field outside and several tents, one of which “housed guards and was filled with ammunition.”

Then, of course, there’s the porn. Like Osama bin Laden before him, Gaddafi was in possession of a gay porn DVD called “Boyz Tracks.” A quick Google search turned up no relevant answers.

Then, of course, there are al-Saadi’s ties to Hollywood. He previously worked with a firm called Natural Selection, LLC, which has been involved in the production of several Hollywood films, like 2010′s The Experiment, starring Adrien Brody. Gaddafi and his business partner, Matty Beckerman, were planning on funding several movies over the next few years before Gaddafi’s assets were frozen. And when Libyans were raiding the compound, they found a black cloth from the back of a director’s chair reading “Executive Producer al-Saadi Gadhafi.”

Meanwhile, al-Saadi’s sister, Aisha Gaddafi, had her own villa with piles of children’s clothes, a pink travel cot, a golden sofa in the shape of a mermaid, and a large indoor swimming pool. One resident was bewildered to see just how opulent the place was, saying, “I can’t even believe what I am seeing.” In fact, according to locals, “a small neighborhood clinic was razed to make room for her home” several years ago. Wow. And this is the nice Gaddafi.

But lest you think that the Libyan people are engaging in rampant looting, one of them claims this is not the case.

[Seifallah Gneidi] said rebels are not condoning looting of private property, and only allow the wrecking of symbols of the Gadhafi family’s abuse of power.

One rebel captured footage inside Aisha Gaddafi’s bathroom (which would sound wrong in any other context). Footage below:

But perhaps the biggest sign of grand opulence in the entire Gaddafi compound is the mini-amusement park in the gardens. Gaddafi had a full-sized carousel and spinning teacups. It’s been described as his own personal Neverland. Rebels entered the gardens and were completely taken aback by what they saw.

[O]ne man could only stare in disbelief at this theme park within a warzone. He snorted: “Libyan children have no childhood, their lives are destroyed by Gaddafi. But his children, his family, have everything.”

As if all this weren’t enough, Col Gaddafi had also used some of the estimated $470 billion he has plundered from the country to build a zoo, stocked with animals supplied by fellow African despots.

I know calling people “Bond villains” has become a great cliché, but I think it’s fair to say that Gaddafi is a Bond villain with a strong hint of Prince.

h/t Washington Post

Milood Amroni has lived in Benghazi for years, but several months ago the town was wrested from Gaddafi’s control and now he is free to crack jokes without fear of imprisonment. However, according to Reuters, in the midst of the political revolution, Amroni has decided to take a break from political comedy.

“I felt I had to start again from the very beginning… I felt that if I make jokes about Gaddafi they wouldn’t be good jokes because he’s too weak now and it’s not good to make jokes about a weak guy.”

He has hinted at a return to political comedy, but in his mind, “[p]olitical jokes were a weapon to fight with and now we don’t need it. But maybe later.”

In the past, Amroni has cracked subtle jokes at Gaddafi without mentioning him by name. In one old skit of his, a Libyan is standing on a table, saying he’s “looking for ‘the guy on top.’” Another man jokes, “No, the guy on top is underground.” (Many Libyans thought Gaddafi resided in an underground bunker.)

Amroni sees this as a tipping point for an open dialogue in Libya, and the people are now the nation’s best source of humor.

“Before, we would just give hints about politics and the people would react and feel happy. Now they’re more critical and it’s very difficult to make them laugh about politics because they’re joking themselves … Now the people are making the jokes and we’re laughing.”

h/t Reuters

Trump lamented that “our country’s going broke,” and wondered why the U.S. hadn’t considered negotiating over oil in the first place.

“You have all these rebels running around… Are they from Iran? Who’s gonna take over Libya? Who’s gonna take over the oil? So what do we get out of it and why don’t we take the oil? I mean, why aren’t we reimbursing ourselves?”

Trump also cited the phrase “to the victor goes the spoils,” and argued that the United States gets “nothing” out of the wars we are currently involved in. He predicted that the Libyan rebels “are going to be richer than the people in this country” because of their access to the nation’s oil reserves.

Watch the video of the segment here, courtesy of Fox News:

h/t Gawker

The president spoke of the “joyful longing for human freedom” when Libyans began protesting six months ago and the large coalition of nations that worked with the United States to intervene militarily in the African nation intended to “stop Gaddafi’s forces in their tracks.” He described the events of the last few days as a “tipping point,” where the rebels were able to advance on Tripoli and deliver a huge blow to Gaddafi’s power in the region.

“The celebrations that we’ve seen in the streets of Libya shows that the pursuit of human dignity is far stronger than any dictator.”

Echoing similar statements made by U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-Moon earlier today, President Obama called for a “peaceful, inclusive, and just” transition of government in the region, stating that justice is not borne in violence, but “reconciliation, and a Libya that allows its citizens to choose their own destiny.” He also emphasized the importance of the Transitional National Council, Libya’s interim government, in shaping the future of the country.

He singled out the Libyan people for their struggle for freedom and dignity, and cited the successes of the military campaign as a victory for the coalition forces.

“The Libyan intervention demonstrates what the international community can achieve when we stand together as one.”

Watch the president’s full address below, courtesy of NBC News:

Ban intends to meet with leaders of the African Union, European Union, and Arab League to discuss the Libyan crisis, and insisted that “[t]he international community has a duty, all the member states of the United Nations… to fully comply with the decisions of the ICC.” The International Criminal Court has already issued arrest warrants for Moammar Gaddafi, his son Saif, and the dictator’s intelligence chief, but the rebels have expressed support for trying members of the Gaddafi regime in-country.

Ban said today the United Nations would support a peaceful transition of power after the violence subsides.

We must ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance to all those in need. This is a hopeful moment, but also there are risks ahead. Now is the time for all Libyans to focus on national unity, reconciliation and inclusiveness. I am determined to show that the United Nations does everything it can to promote an orderly transition.

Watch the report courtesy of the BBC below:

h/t Reuters

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes observed that the mood in Tripoli was relatively calm, and spoke to groups of rebels celebrating their resistance against Gaddafi’s forces. Hayes and his convoy decided to follow the Libyan rebels. They soon found themselves being fired on by pro-Gaddafi forces targeting the rebels. Hayes recounts the experience thusly:

We ran straight into an ambush. We saw a 20-millimeter anti-aircraft cannon firing directly in the front of their convoy.

Watch the video below, courtesy of the BBC:

h/t YouTube

Suggesting that many innocent civilians are dying in Libya as a result of our intervention, Bachmann claimed a “report out of Libya” says potentially 10,000 to 30,000 people could have been killed last night from a NATO airstrike. Wallace wasn’t sure such potential propaganda from Gaddafi could be trusted and wondered why Bachmann was giving it credibility:

Wallace: “So you’re believing the Gaddafi regime?”
Bachmann: “We don’t know, we don’t know. All I’m saying is . . .”
Wallace: “Do you think Muammar Gaddafi is a reliable person?”
Bachmann: “I don’t think anyone thinks that.”

Bachmann was on sturdier ground when more directly attacking Obama, arguing, “President Obama’s policy of leading from behind is an outrage and people should be outraged at the foolishness of the President’s decision” and asking “what in the world are we doing in Libya if we don’t know what our military goal is?” On the broad issues Bachmann can always be relied on for a good rallying cry, but Wallace admirably demonstrated here that he’s not willing to let his guest slide on the finer details of what they attempt to argue.

Watch the clip from Fox below:

(Update) Later in the show Chris Wallace attempts to clarify Rep. Bachmann’s comments:

Why Doesn’t President Obama Release His Long-Form Birth Certificate?

I’m going to start here, because this is the piece of the puzzle that nagged at me for a long time. For the uninitiated, much of the Birther conspiracy centers around the Obama campaign’s release of a Certification of Live Birth (COLB) to prove his eligibility for the office of the presidency, rather than an original “long-form” birth certificate. The COLB is the equivalent of the certified copy I use whenever I need a birth certificate, or whenever anyone else does the same. Nobody carries around their “original” birth certificate (although, according to Stephen Wright, George Washington carried around a dollar bill for this purpose).

While Hawaii state officials have sworn that the certified copy is a valid and true copy of the original birth certificate, and have sworn that they have personally inspected the original with their own eyes, they are unable to produce a copy of it for our consumption. In all fairness, there are competing explanations for this. The first, offered at the conclusion of Gov. Neil Abercrombie‘s fruitless quest to end the controversy, is this: (emphasis mine)

State Attorney General David Louie told the governor that privacy laws bar him from disclosing an individual’s birth documentation without the person’s consent, Abercrombie spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Friday.

Right, so why won’t Barry Hussein O’SecretmuslimBama give his consent, huh? Well, according to a spokesman for the Hawaii Attorney General’s office, he can’t:

“It’s a Department of Health record and it can’t be released to anybody,” he said. Nor do state laws have any provision that authorizes such records to be photocopied, Wisch said. If Obama wanted to personally visit the state health department, he would be permitted to inspect his birth record, Wisch said.

They can’t both be true, right? Well, they kind of are. According to the Hawaii state law in question, Hawaii Revised Statutes §338-18(b), only those who meet the specific criteria of having a “direct and tangible interest” may “inspect” or have a “certified copy” issued to them. Now, “direct and tangible interest” isn’t something you get to argue about. You’re either on the list, or you’re not. The list consists mainly of those with particular legal relationships with Obama, or those with a court order.

No biggie, though. We’ve already seen the certified copy, and heard from those who have inspected the original. But where does the law say Obama can’t authorize release of the original, or a copy of the original? From HRS §338-18(a): (emphasis mine)

To protect the integrity of vital statistics records, to ensure their proper use, and to ensure the efficient and proper administration of the vital statistics system, it shall be unlawful for any person to permit inspection of, or to disclose information contained in vital statistics records, or to copy or issue a copy of all or part of any such record, except as authorized by this part or by rules adopted by the department of health.

That means only disclosures specified by law are permitted under any circumstances, and photographing or copying an original record is not listed anywhere, either with or without a “direct and tangible interest,” or a court order. Unless Eric Cantor changes the law, a photograph or photocopy of Barack Obama’s original birth certificate is not permitted under any circumstances. Barack Obama himself couldn’t release a photograph of the original record.

The Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) Released by Barack Obama is not a Birth Certificate

This is only true in the most literal, semantic sense, i.e the words “Certificate of Live Birth” and “Birth Certificate” are not the same. Legally and lingually, a COLB is a birth certificate, “a copy of an official record of a person’s date and place of birth and parentage.” It is the thing that every American brings to the DMV to get a driver’s license, or to the Justice of the Peace to get married, or any other purpose for which a birth certificate is required. This is an important distinction to understand, because it goes to the motivation behind the original Birther smear.

The Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) Released by Barack Obama Has No Serial Number

This serial number?

As the Obama campaign explained to FactCheck.org, they initially redacted the number out of an abundance of caution. “[We] couldn’t get someone on the phone in Hawaii to tell us whether the number represented some secret information, and we erred on the side of blacking it out. Since then we’ve found out it’s pretty irrelevant for the outside world,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Shauna Daly.

That serial number (151 1961–010641) is more bad news for the Birthers, as it hews closely (only a few digits off) from the certificates of a pair of twins born the next day, at the same hospital.

Before you even start, I know what you’re thinking: how’d that lady get a copy of the twins’ birth certificate? She obtained that copy on May 5, 1966, before Hawaii switched to a digital system for certified copies.

The Certificate of Live Birth (COLB) Released by Barack Obama Has No Signature

Trump actually does concede that he has seen one “on television” that had a stamp, but no signature. That one he saw on TeeVee is the same as the one he saw without the signature, because the signature is on the back. Trump is correct in noting that it is a stamp, but in combination with the raised seal, it carries the legal weight of an original signature. As a tremendously successful businessman, Trump must be aware of this. Surely, he doesn’t sign all of those paychecks by hand?

Barack Obama Has Spent Over $2 Million in Legal Fees to Keep This Quiet

The basis for this claim is the amount of money the Obama campaign paid to the law firm Perkins Coie to, among other things, defend then-Senator Obama’s eligibility for the presidency against an endless series of lawsuits (interestingly, very similar to the rationale Sarah Palin gave for her resignation as Alaska Governor). If defending yourself when someone sues you is a sinister act, then Trump has a lot of explaining to do.

There is a Tape of President Obama’s Grandmother Saying He Was Born in Kenya

Candy Crowley handled this pretty well during her interview with Trump, as did Salon, but whether you want to make allowances for translation, and the condition of the tin-can-and-string contraption the call was made with, and the lack of any way to authenticate the identity of the speaker, and the “when did you stop beating your wife” style of questioning from Ron McRae, the fact is, the closest Sarah Obama comes to saying this is, according to the translator, “Yes. She says, yes, she was, she was present when Obama was born.”

She never says Obama was born in Kenya, and in fact, only ever says he was born in Hawaii, even though McRae tries really hard to get her to say he was born in Kenya.

Obama’s Grandparents Made the Birth Announcements in Two Separate Honolulu Papers

As Crowley pointed out, birth announcements aren’t submitted to the papers by the general public, “but by the Health Department, which received the information directly from hospitals,” according to The Honolulu Advertiser.

Trump also makes a big deal out of the eight day interval between Obama’s birth and the publication of these announcements. I guess he didn’t notice that all of the birth announcements in these papers were from the same couple of days, Aug. 4 and 5. Was the entire state comprised of Kenyan birth-fakers?

It’s easy to forget how things worked back in the days before email, faxes, and other series’ of tubes, but back then, things took awhile. It’s very likely, in fact, that these announcements were reported and published on a weekly basis, and had to meet a long deadline for publication.

There is an Original Birth Certificate on File, but it Says Obama is a Muslim

Trump only hinted at this, saying maybe “there’s something on it that he doesn’t want people to see,” but this particular theory combines birtherism with another popular wingnut smear of President Obama. Unfortunately, neither Hawaii’s long form, nor short form, birth certificates contain religious information. Unless the birth certificate features Obama’s bowling average, I don’t know what Trump’s talking about.

Donald Trump Doesn’t Like to Talk About This Issue

Really, Mr. Trump? Because you sure could have fooled me.

Reuters reports that intermediaries working on behalf of Gaddafi’s entourage have already sent messages to Austria, Britain and France – with greatest emphasis placed on Austria. According to one U.S. national security official, the United States is aware that Gaddafi’s eldest son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and his brother-in-law, Abdullah Senoussi, have been involved in this plan to determine whether an end to military action in Libya is possible. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed this, telling ABC’s Diane Sawyer that, “I’m not aware that he [Gaddafi] personally has reached out, but I do know that people allegedly on his behalf have been reaching out.”

Governments are said to be approaching this overture “with caution.” Clinton, for one, referred to Gaddafi’s attempts at peace as being, at least partially, “theater, some of it is kind of, shall we say, game-playing…,” adding that, nonetheless, the U.S. would encourage Gaddafi to explore a peaceful end to the conflict in his country.

h/t Reuters

Palin continues to draw plenty of media attention, but months of big news stories have taken their toll on her ability to deliver clicks, an indication that her spell may be wearing off (paging Christine O’Donnell?).

Meanwhile, businessman, Apprentice star, and self-proclaimed Gaddafi-screwer Donald Trump has seen his stock with red state red-meaters rise. Since his CPAC coming-out, Trump has been engaging in so much moonbattery, his friends now call him the Lunar Duracell. After dipping a toe in the Birther waters, Trump has gone The Full Orly, threatening to replace his “You’re fired!” catchphrase with “You’re Kenyan!”

Trump also concocted a bizarre story in which he claims to have “screwed” Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in a real estate deal that Trump actually knew nothing about at the time, which he was forced to break under threat of criminal prosecution, and used it to posit real estate rookery as a foreign policy tool. In a few short weeks, Trump has completely changed the artificial horizon of the 2012 GOP landscape, threatening to usurp Palin as the candidate liberals most want to see enter the race. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell even says he’s “ban(ned) any negative comment about Trump” on his show, for fear it might discourage Trump from running.

Palin, by contrast, has been relegated to rattling off other people’s talking points on Libya, and taking desperate swipes at non-candidates like Chris Christie (R-NJ), to diminishing returns. She just doesn’t generate the buzz she used to. Granted, Palin has been doing little to help her cause. In her recent swing through India and Israel, she didn’t bring a harpoon to the Wailing Wall, or even begin barking out cold cut orders upon her arrival in New Delhi.

Still, I have faith in Palin, who has been counted out more times than a box of Rain Man’s toothpicks, first when she lost the vice presidency, and then when she resigned her post as Alaska Governor. Since she’s slipped the gubernatorial bonds, Palin has logged countless hours on Fox News Channel and TLC, coined new words and phrases like “Death Panels” and “refudiate,” and done more to reinvent Facebook than a vengeful Winklevoss twin. There have been numerous ebbs in the Palin media tide, but she always comes roaring back.

All kidding aside, Palin has something that Trump can probably never get: a large, loyal constituency. There is a huge group of people who either love to love Sarah Palin, or love to hate her. Trump, on the other hand, has a penchant for getting attention, but isn’t very likable, and his antics wear thin quickly. Even if he somehow manages to bring Gary Busey and Meat Loaf on the stump with him, I doubt he can sustain interest the way Palin can.

Yesterday, following a British submarine attack, the Libyan Ministry of Information invited several reporters and a video crew out to the impacted area under the guise of showing them damage from the recently fired Tomahawk missiles. Some journalists elected not to go, allegedly fearful that their presence would be used to stave off attack.

British forces were then forced to call off any further attacks (Tornado fighter plans were set to drop missiles on Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli), lest they injure or kill any of the journalists. The Libyan Ministry of Information also brought out a group of civilians to the area for the same purpose.

The incident brings up several interesting questions about the role of journalists covering warfare: Is there such a thing as being too on-the-scene?

Update: CNN’s Nic Robertson is now claiming as false Fox News’ report that he (and others) were used as a “human shield” by Libyan government forces in an effort to thwart a missile attack by British forces “outrageous and absolutely hypocritical.”

Here’s more, courtesy of Fox News:

h/t Business Insider

Saif continued:

“So it was a big surprise that finally President Obama – we thought he is a good man and a friend of the Arab world is bombing Libya. . . . One day you will wake up and you made a big mistake with supporting these people. It’s like the WMD in Iraq. It’s another story.”

In addition to declaring that America is “supporting the terrorists and armed militia,” Saif promised that his father will not step down from power, because someone must protect the Libyan people from the “nightmare” they are living. It’s interesting to hear all perspectives on the story, and it makes one thing certain: the Gaddafis are not leaving without a fight.

Watch the clip from ABC below:

The Guardian reports that, during one of Gaddafi’s press conferences at the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli, a letter was circulated among journalists, essentially telling them that their complaints are all for nought:

No restrictions are imposed on the foreign media. Media correspondents work freely in Libya, and all necessary facilities are provided for them. They have freedom of movement, except in areas controlled by al-Qaida terrorists.

See? The blindfold only serves to heighten your senses. You’re welcome!

And this isn’t the first time Libya has shifted blame onto terrorist activity. In February, Gaddafi blamed Osama bin Laden for the unrest in his country. Then, the Libyan government announced that foreign journalists entering the country illegally would be regarded as “terrorist collaborators.”

The Guardian offers first-hand experience undermining the government’s insistence that reporters are free to fly about the country on magical, rainbow-winged unicorns:

In recent days the Guardian has been held twice for testing this promise, once for six and a half hours outside the town of Zawiyah – which included a visit to an intelligence barracks. During that episode, journalists were told they would be blindfolded and taken to an undisclosed location.

On the second occasion, the Guardian reporter was held for three hours by paratroopers at a checkpoint with tree other British journalists, among 24 who were detained across Tripoli on a single day.

Other nationalities – all with permission to work as reporters in the country – have been subjected to far harsher treatment: some have been held overnight, physically assaulted by militia or threatened with loaded weapons.

Furthermore, Gaddafi continues to spew rhetoric against foreigners, blaming “a small group from Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt and Palestine” for the unrest among Libyans and warning that his country will “fight back” if a no-fly zone is imposed over Libya.

h/t The Guardian

Al Jazeera reports:

Al Jazeera has received pictures that purportedly show Libyan army officers killed for refusing to fire on the rebels, evidence of how Gaddafi deals with “traitors”.

It is claimed the soldiers refused to shoot rebels in the mountainous region west of the capital, Tripoli. The pictures were sent to Al Jazeera by a rebel group in the area.

A survivor of the killings says the men were rounded-up, their legs tied before being shot in the head or back from close range.

It is impossible to independently verify the authenticity of the video.

Watch the video report below (warning, some images are graphic):

According to Kristof, the fact that Gaddafi saw it fit to invite five prominent female journalists to his bedroom (for reasons other than simply admiring his new Ikea dust ruffle) is evidence that he’s completely out of touch with reality.

But Limbaugh doesn’t see this as a symptom of madness – it simply means that Gaddafi is an inappropriate cad with the sex drive of a fourteen-year-old boy. Kind of, Limbaugh says, like a certain former President:

(h/t)

There’s a reason for that.

On December 10, 2007,The New Republic published Harvard professor and author Joseph Nye‘s account of his visit to Libya. Titled “Tripoli Diarist: Big Tent,” Nye’s report detailed a “surreal” meeting with Gaddafi, the two drinking tea in a tent surrounded by camels, goats and the ruins of buildings bombed by U.S. aircraft in the 80s. In his article, Nye disclosed that he was in Libya, meeting with Gaddafi “at the invitation of the Monitor Group, a consulting company that is helping Libya open itself to the global economy.” While that was true, Nye didn’t present a totally complete picture of how the Monitor Group was able to convince “experts” from outside Libya to visit the country, or what the group’s ultimate goals happen to be. The New Republic has since, however, offered an additional, vital bit of disclosure in light of a recent report by Mother Jones on the aims and activities of the Monitor Group. “While the article discloses that Nye traveled to Libya at the invitation of the Monitor Group,” added TNR, “it should have also noted that he was acting as a paid consultant for the company.”

What TNR didn’t add, however, was the the Monitor Group hoped to do more than simply help Libya “open itself to the global economy.” The Boston-based group, which has ties to Harvard’s Business School, was also specifically tasked with changing the global perception of Gaddafi.

But don’t just take our word for it. Take a look at a letter to Libya from Monitor CEO Mark Fuller, via Mother Jones:

“The project is a sustained, long term program to enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya and the contribution it has made and may continue to make to its region and to the world. It will emphasize the emergence of the new Libya and its ongoing process of change.”

During the course of the project a second important goal was introduced by the client. This goal is to introduce Muammar Qadhafi as a thinker and intellectual, independent of his more widelyknown and very public persona as the Leader of the Revolution in Libya.

Others who visited Libya thanks to Monitor include Princeton professor Andrew Moravcsik, who wrote about his trip for Newsweek International; British author Anthony Giddens, whose account appeared in The Guardian; author Benjamin Barber; and another Harvard professor, Robert Putnam, who wrote of his meeting with Gaddafi for The Wall Street Journal.

The men disclosed their association with Monitor to varying degrees (including denying any association whatsoever), despite Monitor documentation of their visits and cooperation.

For their part, the Monitor is keeping mum about their involvement with each of these writers, telling Mother Jones that the firm does not comment on the specifics of its work with clients.

The firm does not seem to have a client list on its U.S. website, but does offer an explanation about its goals and services:

Monitor serves corporations, governments, and non-profit institutions to help them grow.

We work across virtually all industries and in all parts of the world.

Our clients share an aspiration to lead in their fields and a desire to harness new ideas, unconstrained by conventional wisdom, for the benefit of their organizations.

h/t Mother Jones

Furtado had been one of the artists, along with the likes of Carey and Beyonce (who performed five songs for the Gaddafi family at a lavish New Year’s celebration to usher in 2010), named in a recent WikiLeaks document documenting celebrities who have performed for the dictator and members of his family for rather large sums of money. The artists mentioned in the document drew immediate criticism for having indulged the whims of a dictator… although, you know. The things we do for one million! Or because we’re totally not aware of tensions abroad.

As far as we know, Furtado is the first artist named in the documents to publicly “give back,” in a sense, payment given by the Gaddafis, but there’s no word yet on how or where she plans to donate the $1 million. Any suggestions?

Reuter’s report however that rumors are not true:

The U.S. government has no reason to believe that Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is dead, a U.S. official said on Thursday after oil traders cited a rumor that Gaddafi had been shot as pushing down oil prices.

Asked if Washington had reason to believe that Gaddafi, who is seeking to crush protests against his 41-year rule in the oil-exporting North African nation, was dead, the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “No.”

Gaddafi appears to have thus far survived the upheaval, but if the situation in Libya is in any way like the situation that recently unfolded in Libya, it may just be a matter of time. Earlier today we reported that Gaddafi had blamed the uprising in Libya on Osama bin Laden before adding that it up to the Libyan people to stop fighting among themselves and to cease “taking hallucinogenic drugs.”

But as far as we know right now, Gaddafi is still alive.

Watch the report from Fox News below:

The analogy that Tapper’s sources paint has disturbing echoes of the tragic end of the 1993 siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. From Political Punch:

Officials analyzing Moammar Gadhafi’s rambling speech are concerned that the Libyan strongman is so untethered to reality he may “burn down the house with him,” as one put it, putting the Lybyan people — and hundreds of Americans — at risk, and prompting President Obama to carefully calibrate his words.

In his first public remarks on the crisis Wednesday, President Obama didn’t mention Gadhafi’s name, not wanting to personalize the crisis and feed into Gadhafi’s megalomaniacal worldview of this crisis as a showdown between him and President Obama.

Tapper goes on to elaborate on what his sources told him, and it’s worth a thorough read.

This kind of Monday morning quarterbacking is nothing new, and it is a free country, but in situations like this, administration critics really ought to weigh considerations as obvious as these. Surprisingly, while a Hardball panel that included David Corn failed to do so, Ed Morrissey of the conservative blog Hot Air actually did, although they threw in some craven political calculation, as well: (emphasis mine)

The White House has a worst-of-all-possible-worlds scenario unfolding in Libya as it concerns Americans trapped in the country.  Until the US can safely get Americans to Malta or anywhere else — even Egypt and Tunisia don’t look bad at the moment — Obama can’t afford to provoke either side into attacking Americans, at least not if Obama thinks he will get blamed for any violence done to them.  The last thing Obama needs is yet another evocation of the Carter presidency with a long, drawn-out hostage crisis in a radical Islamist state.

So it’s understandable that Obama has tempered his reaction in this case with that context in mind. But even so, here’s a better question — why didn’t the White House start evacuating Americans from Libya when Egypt erupted into political chaos?  Did no one think that the uprisings just might spark a rebellion against one of the more brutal dictators in the region?

Of course, I have an even better question: Just how many Middle Eastern countries does Ed Morrissey think the President should have cut and run from as soon as things went south in Egypt? The difference between this course of action and the President’s statement is the difference between looking weak, and actually being weak.

In a phone call to a Libyan television station, Gaddafi said he regretted the recent deaths of so many Libyans while pointing to bin Laden as the people’s real enemy:

“Bin Laden … this is the enemy who is manipulating people,” Gaddafi said, adding: “Do not be swayed by bin Laden.”

He added that it up to the Libyan people to stop fighting among themselves and to cease “taking hallucinogenic drugs.” Can’t go wrong with that advice, we suppose.

h/t Reuters

Choosing the members of the Amazonian guard is a little more involved than simply placing a mildly coherent Craigslist ad. For one, every member must, allegedly, be a virgin hand-picked by Gaddafi, and must then undergo extensive martial arts and firearms training at a special academy before becoming official members of the force.

The bodyguards dress in military-inspired garb, wearing either khaki jumpsuits or fatigues with red berets… as well as make-up, polished nails and jewelry, even when on the job.

Rumors persist that Gaddafi demands “sexual favors” of his guards, but other rumors contend that they must remain chaste throughout their years of service.

According to Gaddafi, the job works to “empower” women, rather than merely exist as the whim of a megalomaniacal despot. “Women should be trained for combat,” he believes, “so that they do not become easy prey for their enemies.”

You can see his various bodyguards in this video from Russian TV:

“Fox hasn’t dedicated this much airtime to a raving lunatic since that Glenn Beck special.”

Mark Knoller: If Qadhafi ever gives up the de facto leadership of Libya, could you see a talk show in his future?

Andy Levy: Qaddafi: We are all pirates. Except for the pirates. America? Pirates. Israel? Pirates. Pirates? Not pirates. [EXACT TRANSLATION]

Ben Smith: RT @mkoshark: Gadhafi is set to close his #UN speech with a shameless plug to watch his stint on next season’s Dancing With the Stars

Chris Lehmann: I’m assuming the aide responsible for giving an Attaboy to Qaddafi after that performance is now planning to defect.

“Where’s @CongJoeWilson when you need him?”

Mike Madden: RT @owillis:Qadafi: so this is what @glennbeck sounds like in a diff language.

Jake Tapper: AND…Qadaffi’s done. Roughly 90 minutes of sheer poetry.

Ben Smith: Qaddafi: You are the ones who hate the Jews.

Mark Knoller: At 90 minutes into the Qadhafi speech, 2nd shift of UN translators come on duty.

Mark Knoller: Qadhafi even has his own health care reform: accuses capitalist countries & companies of creating viruses then charging for vaccinations.

Mike Madden: Khaddafy: “Perhaps tomorrow we shall have a fish flu.” Perhaps! Can we get him to weigh in on the Baucus healthcare markup?

Chris Lehmann: Wow, this Qaddafi speech is longer than a Saturday Night Live sketch. Funnier, too.

Ari Melber: Even for Gaddafi, #imaletyoufinish

“#imaletyoufinish”

Jake Tapper: Where’s @CongJoeWilson when you need him?

Jake Tapper: I would fact check this Qadaffi speech but…..well…..I got a life to lead….

Ana Marie Cox: RT @mikememoli: Fox hasn’t dedicated this much airtime to a raving lunatic since that Glenn Beck special. // Beck actually has more demands.

Mark Knoller: Qadhafi calling for UN investigations of assassinations including JFK – and the killing of “Lee Harvey” by Jack Ruby.

Mike Madden: Could someone fill me in on how Gaddafi started talking about Jack Ruby?

Jake Tapper: I think Aaron Altman had it wrong about this guy.

David Folkenflik: … And i’m pretty sure khaddafy is now waving copy of GOP health care plan at assembly

David Folkenflik: Khaddafy says swine flu created in military labs; UN mtgs should be moved from NYC to avoid jet lag…

Mark Knoller: Qadhafi calls for UN investigation of US-led Iraq war on Iraq which he calls “the mother of all evils.”

Drudge Report: Gadhafi chastises UN for failing to prevent 65 wars… http://tinyurl.com/nzdjsq

Seth Colter Walls: Wondering how long it will take someone to mash up Qadhafi’s UN appearance with Yeezy’s VMA interruption. Couple hours?

Ben Smith: Qaddafi really rolling. Free Noriega!

“On TV now: Gadhafi (CNN), Khaddafy (MSNBC) and Qaddafi (Fox).”

Michael Calderone: On TV now: Gadhafi (CNN), Khaddafy (MSNBC) and Qaddafi (Fox).

Mark Knoller: Qadhafi now calling for UN to be moved from NYC to another location in the world. “I want to relieve America from this hardship.”

Jake Tapper: Qadaffi talking about some disease created in a lab perhaps as a military weapon – translation spotty so not sure what hes talking about.

Mark Knoller: Quite a sight to see Qadhafi at the lectern of the UN General Assembly. During Reagan years, Qadhafi was seen as lead terrorist in world.

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