The Q-man.

• Author: Bloom, John
• Position: Despot Watch

I'M SAD to report that our favorite North African despot has turned a little jowly in recent years. He's lost that Neil Diamond Grecian-bust look he had going on in his revolutionary youth, and when he loads himself up with military sashes and decorated pockets and epaulets and that broad-brimmed braided cap, the Colonel resembles nothing so much as an officious constable in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Maybe he's doing it on purpose. Maybe it's the new kinder, gentler friendly-guy-next-door Qaddafi. The title of "Colonel", after all, was conferred by the Brits. What kind of guy goes through life wanting to be the Colonel? We associate it with Colonel Sanders, not to mention Colonel Klink. It's the daft blundering guy who never quite makes general.

But then again, I think it's just Muammar's version of modesty--as much as he can muster anyway. He's always struck me as a guy who was not entirely comfortable addressing a Popular Congress, and I suspect he's spirited away a few Cuban Cohibas over the years. In this brave new world of post-Lockerbie Libya--no sanctions, no embargoes and the creation of a Libyan tourism ministry, of all things--I can almost imagine Muammar settling down into a Lazy Boy recliner in his Hush Puppies and channel-surfing from time to time. His recent speeches have even shown a disturbing familiarity with the Internet. The mind boggles: "Hey, whassup, peeps! I can be kinda wild, but I'm really an easygoing guy who likes to cuddle."

Is it possible? Has the Q-Man gone soft? Does the Director of Secret Operations knock on his tent flap in Benghazi and say, "Sir, we have three troublesome emigres in Paris. Would you like us to send The Squad?" And does Qaddafi then say, "Oh, you know what, that's so seventies. Just run some articles in the Tripoli papers saying they have sex with dogs or something."

Of course, Qaddafi has always been the most mysterious of all pariahs. He has homes all over Libya, but chances are you'll find no Saddam-style golden saunas or hideaways for assignations with porn stars. Qaddafi is the Ward Cleaver of international dictators. He had that first brief marriage in the 1970s, then he found the girl of his Islamic dreams and stayed with her through five children who went through angst-ridden teenage years. If he'd had his heart in being a true Mohammedan super-despot, he would have had five wives and attendant offspring spread out all over the desert. Instead, he's got all these disappointing sons who are bored by the idea of being the next "Guide of the Revolution" and want to open car dealerships and go to football games instead. The only family member with an eye for politics is his daughter Aisha, who shops in London and Paris and could actually run the country--the Arab heads of state like her that much--but Muammar would have to go through some kind of sharia hell to make that happen.

Still, everything we know about Qaddafi is seen through a fuzzy curtain. He's always been so exotically remote to us that he even has a name that's impossible to pronounce or write in English. The man is a Google nightmare. Various attempts have been Gadhafi, Gadaffi, Gadhafi, Gadhdhafi, Kaddafi, Kadhdhafi, Khadafy, Qadaffi, Qaddafi, Qadhafi, Qadhdhafi and Qathafi, but no one really knows whether it's a "G", a "K" or a "Q", not to mention where all the h's go. His official biography is remarkably devoid of details about his early years--probably because they were spent organizing various cells plotting murder and revolutionary mayhem--but it always begins with "born in a desert tent near Surt." I've always suspected that the constant mention of Surt is an attempt to identify Qaddafi with the nation's main source of wealth--its oil fields--which lie in and around Surt and were not discovered until 1959, but were obviously squandered until a proper Surtite could marshal their economic power, primarily by seizing everything the Brits and Americans had built there. (The only American company, by the way, that stood up to Qaddafi's nationalization of the oil fields was the privately held Hunt Oil of...