Late Night: Jon Stewart baffled by GOP response to Kadafi’s death

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In case you were trapped in an underground hiding place Thursday and missed it, the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi was the big story. His passing represented a rare triumph for the embattled Obama administration and a vindication of the president’s strategy of ‘leading from behind.’ Right?

Not so fast. As Jon Stewart noted on ‘The Daily Show,’ Republican politicians and their ideological allies at Fox News found plenty to wring their hands over.

‘Of course the administration reacted to today’s victory with relief and amazement, the Libyan people with gratitude and jubilation,’ Stewart said. ‘But for one group, the death of Kadafi, the dictator and major sponsor of international terrorism, required more reflection and time to process and figure out how this great news was actually ... bad?’

He rolled a clip in which John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations, expressed concern over the power vacuum left in the wake of Kadafi’s death. Stewart responded with withering sarcasm: ‘Who knows, the next guy who comes in could be crazy and sponsor terrorism.’

Then he got a little more serious, wondering what it would take for Republicans to cite the president’s role in the end of Kadafi’s 42-year reign. ‘We removed a dictator in six months, losing no American soldiers, spending like a billion dollars rather than a trillion dollars and engendering what appears to be good will to people who now have a prideful story of their own independence to tell — not to mention oil ... they have oil. Anybody want to give credit?’

In another montage, Republican senators such as John McCain and Chuck Grassley expressed their gratitude to France and the United Kingdom, conspicuously leaving out President Obama.

‘What the [heck] is wrong with you people? Honestly. Are you that small?’ he wondered.

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-- Meredith Blake
Twitter.com/MeredithBlake