With Ghaddafi Dead, the Score is now Obama 17, Bush 7

And you thought the Republicans were the party of war leaders and successful outcomes. As it turns out, they mismanage wars as often as they mismanage the economy. Take, for example, today's death of Moammar Ghaddafi, or as I like to call him, the man of many name spellings. The now-former dictator of Libya died today after rebel troops killed him. The troops were backed by American and NATO air support throughout their struggle. It was the war that none of the Republicans wanted to support. Even now that it's over, none of the Republicans running for president are willing to man up, admit they were wrong, and pat Obama on the back for a job well done. Not one of them. Instead, they're all taking the predictable shots at him, despite a war effort that can only be seen as a huge success. I mean, christ, the war is already over. It cost us around $2 billion and we lost exactly zero soldiers. You can't even get those kinds of numbers in a war video game with the cheat codes on. Mitt Romney said it was great that Ghaddafi was dead, but offered no retraction for his claim in March that it was a mistake for Obama to “following the French into Libya.” Rick Perry just seemed relieved that another brown person was dead. The fact that he was a terrorist was a bonus, apparently. Michele Bachmann, who only recently learned that Libya is in Africa (keep cutting school funding, Republicans!) said just last month that “it was wrong for the president to go into Libya.” And on and on. Meanwhile, nothing but support and love for the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the loss of life has been staggering, and the costs astronomical. Total costs of the wars, to date, is around $4 trillion. Four effing trillion dollars, for what? A toppled Saddam statue and a bunch of dead muslims with angry relatives. Nice work, George. I'm sure the families of the 6,000 U.S. troops and 2,300 contractors who have died so far were totally worth it. You can also add in the 137,000 or so dead civilians (Fox News never really gets around to reporting that part in their War Porn Series) and the 8 million who have been left homeless and displaced by the wars. It's a collective sum of suffering that simply should not happen in the modern world. But hey...George Bush wanted revenge on two nations that didn't attack us, so damn it, he got his revenge. Kind of. It was, after all, Obama who got Osama. George Bush put up all kinds of Mission Accomplished banners, but never seemed to catch the guy. Obama got him and he got Ghaddafi, and he did it all on the cheap. Bush got nothing, but did get to use his buy one war, get one free card, which was due to expire in 2004. So there's that. In any case, I have awarded points as follows:

• Obama touchdown (7 points) for killing Osama
• Obama touchdown (7 points) for killing Ghaddafi
• Obama Field Goal (3 points) for getting us out of Libya as quickly as we got in
• Bush touchdown (7 points) for killing Saddam Hussein

When we finally get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we can edit the scores. In the meantime, let's celebrate the liberation of a country done the right way: with help from allies, with airpower support for local, inspired rebel troops, and for getting out of the way and letting the Libyans fight for Libya. Like my stories? You can subscribe for my free newsletter here. To comment on this (or any of my columns), visit my user page at Benzinga. You can also reach me by email john@benzinga.com or on twitter @johndthorpe.