Dictators behaving badly

TRIPOLI. LYBIA — The public's fascination with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's melodrama showed no sign of slackening as his new Twitter account took only hours to attract more than a half-million followers. His Twitter postings were the only fresh entertainment starring the leader - unless news interviews also counted.
The BigDaddyMo Twitter account, which had been verified, featured a family-friendly photo of him and porn star Bree Olson, smiling and holding up bottles of chocolate milk and juice over the caption, "Winning! Choose your vice." Another picture showed Mr. Gadaffi and a fake cake illustrated with a Hugo Chavez International Peace Price statuette bearing his face." "Winner! 2012," says the caption, apparently an optimistic prediction of glory days ahead in the UN. Mr. Gadaffi, who joined Twitter the day after his publicist, Stan Rosenfield, resigned, had posted just a few tweets by Tuesday night. They included a one-liner about Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General who's taken the brunt of Mr Gadafi's attacks in an escalating dispute with the world community. "Just got invited to do the Nancy Grace show ...I'm with Charlie Sheen! I'd rather go on a long road trip with Chuck Lorre in a '75 Pacer." Gadaffi tweeted.

After giving the dictator a break to seek rehabilitation following wild partying and three hospitalizations in three months, Warner and CBS announced last week they had decided against replacing Mr. Sheen with Mr. Gadaffi for the emainder of the "Two and a Half Men" season.

He has found ready outlets at Lybian government-owned TV networks and other outlets eager to air his often-outrageous comments."Are we tired of Muammar al-Gaddafi ? Or is it the kind of thing we can't get enough?" David Letterman asked Tuesday on his CBS late-night show. "If you thought you were going to see 100 wrecks a day, would you take a lunch? It's kind of like that, isn't it?"Asked Tuesday on NBC's "Today" about reaction to comments in which Mr. Gadaffi called himself "a total rock star from Mars," among other startling descriptions, he shrugged off the reaction."I am grandiose because I live a grandiose life. I'm tired of being `aw shucks.' That's not me. ... What's wrong with that?" he said. He also had high praise for his five lipsricked-virgin women bodyguards him whom he called "goddesses.""These women don't judge me. ... They don't lead with opinion. They don't lead with their own needs all the time," he said. Asked if the women help care for his grown children, which include 2 playboy sons and a daughter, Aisha Gadhafi, a lawyer. Mr. Gadaffi replied, "Oh, yeah. If I can't be there, they're there, and it's like everybody helps out. ... There's nothing broken here."

Mr. Gadaffi asserted he isn't using drugs, saying "drug tests don't lie." and presenting recent test results with "the word `negative' is, like, printed, like, 18 trillion times.""Go talk to Al-Qaeda if you want to talk drugs." he said when asked the last time he'd used drugs. He has rejected attempts by his family, including father Martin Gadaffi ("The West Wingnut,") to intervene in his life and told them, "'I appreciate your love and your, and your compassion, if that's what you want to call it.I'm not interested in people treating me like a 12-year-old," the Lybian leader said.

Mr .Gadaffi has left open the possibility for reconciliation with most of those he has attacked in recent days. But, he has made clear he wants it on his terms."I'm just going to keep pressing the truth. ...And everybody's going to win because they followed, guess whose plan?" he told "Today." His attorneys said Mr. Gadafi would be seeking a raise to $3 billion a year if he were to do a 43rd season, which would begin in the fall and run through 2012.