Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi may have rambled in near-incoherent fashion for more than an hour-and-a-half when he spoke to the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday, but on one point he was crystal clear and enthusiastically applauded: President Obama is “our Obama.” That endorsement came in a spleen-splitting speech that also included such gems as Gadhafi’s belief that evil drug companies created the swine flu to make more money, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the Israelis who feared he would stop their nuclear program, and today’s piracy off the African coast is caused by Western imperialism.
If Gadhafi’s recommendations sound a bit daff, just think of who he was addressing. For several decades, the United Nations has happily hosted and thereby lent a farcical air of legitimacy to an endless parade of tinhorn dictators, genocidal killers, corrupt self-dealers, and even an armed terrorist, all masquerading as respected heads of state. And for just as many decades, a succession of American presidents and Congresses have played along with the illusion of civility, while paying the freight to keep this diplomatic freak show on the East River afloat.
