Oct. 25, 2011, Washington, DC — President Obama dressed in black today to commemorate the Tuesday burial of a friend, the late Colonel Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, who was beaten and possibly sodomized by Muslim extremists before they murdered him last week.

"I wanted Colonel Gaddafi to stop shooting his people, but I didn't want him to die," Obama said.

The president recalled that as recently as March his administration considered allowing the Libyan strongman to stay in power.

"He called me a friend and a son of Africa and of Muslim descent," Obama said. "He was always so nice to me. That's why I did not immediately join other countries in calling for the great colonel to step down. Besides, there are no bad people — just good people who sometimes do bad things — and if you talk with them nicely, you can usually get them to do the right thing."

Obama's former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, said today that he also considered Gaddafi a friend.

"When Louis Farrakhan and I went on vacation with Gaddafi one year, I really got to like him," Wright said. "Not many people know this, but he's a really good ping pong player. He wasn't ready to convert to Christianity, but he supported my efforts to get social justice for African-Americans."

Wright said he is disappointed that an attack by an unmanned American drone on Gaddafi's convoy led to his capture and death.

"Now I'm afraid that more of them chickens will come home to roost," Obama's former pastor of 20 years said. "We deserved 9/11, and we deserve what is to come. One things for sure: Don't sing 'God Bless America' now."

Minister Louis Farrakhan, who heads the African-American Nation of Islam, said Gaddafi was a friend of his organization and contributed generously to it.

"Colonel Gaddafi spent 42 years building up his country," Farrakhan said. "And what does he get for his lifetime of devoted service? An ending that is more fitting to a dog or a Jew."

Farrakhan said he has reconsidered his position that Obama is the Messiah who was sent to earth to do God's work to unite the world's races and religions.

"If being a friend means bombing my car, I don't think I want a friend like that," he said.

Obama's Chief of Staff Gaye Bourne said the administration supports the new leaders of Libya, which will now be welcomed into the fraternity of democratic nations.

"Their first order of business was to reinstitute sharia law," she said. "That is how democracy works. The majority gets to dictate to the minority. That is a principle that President Obama will always support as long as his party is in power."