How much time left?

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told us something we’d been waiting to hear Tuesday: “Gaddafi’s days are numbered,” he said of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during a session with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at National Defense University.

But then we started flipping through the pages of our notebook, backwards through time until reeled the mind:

Gaddafi’s days are numbered. — August 15, White House press secretary Jay Carney He’s really running out of time. — July 20, Carney His days are numbered. — July 13, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton The noose is tightening around him. — June 29, President Obama His days are numbered. — June 20, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland We do believe his days are numbered. — June 20, Carney His days are numbered. — June 16, Nuland We feel that Gaddafi’s days are numbered. — June 14, State Department spokesman Mark Toner His days are numbered. — June 2, Carney Time is up for the Gaddafi regime. — May 12, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen Muammar Gaddafi’s days are numbered. — May 11, Carney I actually do believe his days are numbered. — April 28, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff His days are numbered. — March 30, Carney

One of these days, they may be right.