It was a mistake to remove him. A serious mistake.
I would argue that it was the best thing to do, considering he was going to basically burn the rebel-controlled towns to the ground and slaughter thousands of his own people (or so he threatened), far more than have died in a Gaddafi-less world.
The problem the US made was not following up and contributing support to the secular-ish types and forcing the Islamists to back down.
Like in Iraq?
Putting an end to that mass murderer is yet another wonderful accomplishment of Barack Obama.
Would you say the same if Bush did it? I somehow doubt it.
HP regardless.
The difference with Iraq is that we ignored the rebels the first time, and then when we finally got rid of Saddam in the second war, there wasn't really any rebel forces we could have supported. We just went in and attacked, essentially. At least in Libya there was a clear, non-Gaddafi opposition that at least appeared democratic.
I see where you are comming from. With hindsight bias of course, would you have supported an overthrow of Saddam back in 91 using the Shia/Kurds/anti-Saddam elements as auxiliary ground forces?