Capture of Saddam is Not Big News After All

Capture of Saddam is Not Big News After All

The Big News this past Monday was that there was no big news last Sunday. The more gullible among you might have fallen for that photo-op capture of Saddam Hussein and thought that was Big News. But Howard Dean took to the podium the morning after to deprogram the brainwashed simpletons. Nothing of consequence occurred.
"The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope will help keep our soldiers safer. But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer," pronounced the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
One person whose brainwashing resisted Dean’s cure was future also-ran Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut). “Howard Dean has climbed into his own spider hole of denial if he believes that the capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer. Saddam Hussein is a homicidal maniac, brutal dictator, supporter of terrorism, and enemy of the United States, and there should be no doubt that America and the world are safer with him captured.�
On Sunday, Lieberman reminded the world that, “If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam would be in power, not in prison.�
To be fair, it’s worth pointing out that were Joseph Lieberman vice-president today, Saddam would also still be in power. Al Gore did say that only Howard Dean has been right on Iraq from the start. He also said that the Iraq war was the worst foreign policy mistake in the nation’s history - worse than Vietnam, I suppose.
Dean then parroted the other cognoscenti by declaring that the capture of Saddam Hussein was a great opportunity to internationalize the rebuilding of Iraq.
I may be a little dumb, but I really don’t see how including the French and Germans in the coalition is going to reduce the level of resistance. Who really believes that the Saddam Fedayeen or the Baathist dead-enders, or the Al Quaeda terrorists will be satisfied with a broader coalition policing Iraq? Are we to believe that these suicide bombers are sacrificing their lives so that French companies can bid on reconstruction contracts?
Dean also opined that foreign policy requires a subtlety that the Bush Administration lacks. “Nuance matters in foreign policy.�
That must be the sort of nuance Dean exhibited back in 1998 when he defended Clinton’s unilateral four-day bombing campaign against Saddam Husseins’ Iraq: “I don't think we could have built an international coalition to invade or have a substantial bombing of Saddam.�…“The French will always do exactly the opposite on what the United States wants regardless of what happens, so we're never going to have a consistent policy.�
And of course, a good president has a firm grasp on world affairs. "We've gotten rid of him [Saddam Hussein],� Dean once pronounced, “and I suppose that's a good thing.�
Fortunately for Dean, he has the Puget Sound Pinhead, Representative Jim McDermott (D-Never-Neverland), making a fool of himself on Dean’s narrow left flank. He followed Dean’s embarrassing performance by accusing the Bush Administration of timing the capture of Saddam to maximize political benefit.
"I've been surprised they waited, but then I thought, well, politically, it probably doesn't make much sense to find him just yet," he said.
“There's too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing that it happened on this particular day," he continued.
“I don't have any knowledge if they knew about it (Saddam's hideout). I think they (Bush administration) got a Christmas present early.�
Oh sure, McDermott’s a nut who could get elected only in Seattle. But Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright suggested to Morton Kondracke that the Bush Administration already had Usama bin Laden in prison, to be brought out just before the 2004 general election.
Dean is beginning to look like a centrist within his party.
And as an aside, after seeing video of Saddam being deloused (or, to be fair to the lice, perhaps they were being de-Saddamed) last Sunday morning, I’m pretty sure that I know where he’s has been hiding. I was serving dinner to the homeless in Spokane on Thanksgiving Day, and I think I handed him a sandwich. Of course, I’m kidding. Most of the people I met that day had bathed and brushed their teeth far more recently than the Saddam I saw.