Ending a wacko is hard to do

On Qaddafi, David Brooks concludes, "If you’re going to be a tyrant, be a wacko. It’s safer." In the Libyan tyrant's case, megalomania is the secret to his longevity.

Brooks writes:

"The paradoxical fact is that if you want to stay in office as a dictator, it is better to be a narcissistic totalitarian than a run-of-the-mill autocrat. Megalomianiacs like Qaddafi seek to control every neuron in their peoples’ heads and to control every aspect of life. They destroy all outside authority and civil society. They personalize every institution so that things like the army exist to serve their holy selves, rather than the nation at large. They are untroubled by doubt or concern for the good opinion of others since they already possess absolute truth. They are motivated to fulfill their World Historical Mission and have no interest in retiring peacefully to some villa."

And as Jeane Kirkpatrick once observed (per Brooks), the whack-jobs running totalitarian regimes are much harder to dislodge. Read the Brooks column here.