I’m not one of those boo-hooing today over Qaddafi getting rough justice from people he terrorized for 40 years, but here’s a pro tip: Laughing your way through a “veni vidi vici” joke while the rest of the planet is wincing at this isn’t a classic demonstration of “smart power.” In fact, pretty much any joke about death while the deceased is bleeding from his head into the ground is probably a bad bet if you happen to be chief diplomat for the world’s greatest military power. If you want to send a “let that be a lesson to you” message, send it earnestly and tactfully. As it is, if this had been Dubya instead of the Democrats’ heir apparent, the outrageous outrage would shake the very ground we trod upon.

In fairness to Hillary, though, the left’s newfound hawkish glee isn’t limited to her. Timothy Carney’s keeping an eye on Twitter:

Pictured here is a tweet from liberal blogger Markos, of the Daily Kos. It reads: “GOPers who criticized Obama’s approach in Libya … wrong again.”

The implication: If you objected to the President for illegally entering a war where vital U.S. interests were not at stake, you were wrong, because we killed Gadafhi. More briefly: Might makes right.

The liberal Center for American Progress made the same unliberal argument in August when Gadhafi lost control of the country, asking on twitter: “Does John Boehner still believe U.S. military operations in Libya are illegal?”…

Aside from the legal question, there’s the nation-building question. Kos and CAP have effectively shouted “Mission Accomplished” and flippantly dismiss the notion that a power vaccuum in Libya might help the terrorists or mire the U.S. in an ugly long-term engagement.

Precisely. It’s one thing to say “I’m glad he’s dead” or “he had it coming,” it’s another to claim that the ends justified the means when the means involved Obama ignoring not just the Pentagon’s lawyers but his own. Weren’t Kos and CAP once among the noisiest members of the anti-war crowd, forever reminding Bush of his own premature celebration when Baghdad fell and Saddam was captured? Don’t they know what’s likely to happen in Libya in the aftermath? Oh well. We came, we saw, he died!