President Barack Obama declared Monday afternoon that Moammar Gadhafi’s 42 year rule is over, “The future of Libya is in the hands of its people,” he said.

While calling on Gadhafi to surrender and end the bloodshed, the President called on the opposition to seek a just transition into an uncertain future, “The rights of all Libyans must be respected,” he said. “True justice will not come from reprisals and violence; it will come from reconciliation and a Libya that allows its citizens to determine their own destiny.”

So, let’s see, President Obama allows United States aircraft to support the 5 month revolution, and thus far – knock on wood – we have no U.S. deaths, and an avowed enemy of our country and sponsor of terrorism is overthrown. Sounds like a pretty clear vindication of the President’s decision to limit U.S. involvement in Libya and to let NATO take control after the U.S. led the initial air campaign in March.

Unlike his predecessor, President Obama stopped well short of declaring “mission accomplished”, leaving it to a spokesman to credit U.S. strategy and “the President’s robust leadership” with producing “a lot of favorable results.” But the President highlighted NATO’s success after months of doubts about whether the alliance would be able to prevail.

“NATO has once more proven that it is the most capable alliance in the world and that its strength comes from both its firepower and the power of our democratic ideals,” he said.

The President was quick to point out that it all happened “without putting a single U.S. troop on the ground” – a policy, according to aides, that President Obama will maintain.

This is a welcomed policy after eight years of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld example of bungling the war effort against Al Qaeda, with its deploying more than a hundred thousand troops but lacking any cohesive strategy besides shooting up a lot of Afghanistan and Iraq, and failing after eight years of conflict to get Osama Bin Laden.

So, let’s recap; under the leadership of a President conservatives love to hate, Navy Seals killed Bin Laden – something Bush failed to accomplished; we’re drawing down forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and Gadhafi’s out as dictator of Libya – something Reagan could never do. Not bad for the man Limbaugh and company have claimed was soft on terror.