Duck Season

So Don Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in 1984 to improve diplomatic relations. Many people will make a big deal out of this, but I don't see how it is relevant to what is going on today. If the point is that the U.S. was wrong to be an ally with Iraq in the 1980's, that might be right, but it does not follow that the U.S. is now wrong to invade Iraq. If the U.S. did "create the monster", isn't it incumbent upon us to undo the damage that we supposedly did? I find it odd that someone would say that we shouldn't have taken down Saddam because we supported him in the 80's. The inevitable attention that will be on this story seems to me to come from the hopes of some people to find anything that will be able to embarrass the administration.

On a related note, I highly doubt that Saddam will end up saying something that will embarrass Bush. For one thing, U.S. ties with Iraq were in the 1980's, and it'd be hard to blame Bush for what other people in his party did twenty years ago. While some of those people are in the current administration, Bush still doesn't have anything to do with what they did. And most importantly, it's not as if what everything Saddam says in the interrogations will be released to he public, and when he's on trial in public, he'll be too busy trying to save his life to think of clever ways to embarrass Republicans.

Roger L. Simon reports that the BBC will no longer call Saddam Hussein a "dictator" because he was apparently "elected".

I got another reply, this time from Dan Okrent himself, for the email I sent to the New York Times about their lack of coverage on the anti-terrorist protests in Iraq. This was sent to everyone who voiced a similar complaint:

I've been in touch with the Times's Baghdad bureau and the paper's foreign desk, who attribute the failure to cover the story in detail (a three-column picture did appear in the paper) to two things: The organizers of the demonstration failed to alert the Times in advance. And, more crucially, the responsible parties at the Times dropped the ball. As you might imagine, life can be difficult and work terribly complicated for journalists in a war zone. Still, the story should have received more thorough coverage.

I'm really looking forward to his column next week, because it looks as if this will be addressed.

We can add "fraud" to Wesley Clark's résumé:

This weekend Clark will try to woo football fans by sporting a Patriots football jersey in a TV ad slated to run during a Patriots vs. Jets game. "We're all patriots," he says in the spot, presumably to the bemusement of thousands of Patriots fans across New Hampshire. Camp Kerry is already giving him headaches over football allegiances -- Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter cites an AP article dated November 25, in which Clark said he loves the Green Bay Packers.

More:

Under the headline, "MARY, WHO DO I ROOT FOR?" Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter explains:

"Wesley Clark's football allegiances seem to be as flexible as his party affiliation," Cutter said. "He is planning on donning a Pats jersey and airing a special commercial during this weekend's game, the ultimate in pandering to New England football fans. But where does Wes Clark truly stand on football allegiances?"

Cutter then cited an AP article dated November 25, in which Clark said he "loves [the Green Bay Packers]. And I hope Brett Favre's thumb gets better." She also cited an October 24 article in which Clark spokeswoman Kym Spell declared Clark is "a Razorbacks fan."

The press release features a picture of Clark signing autographs while dressed in a Packers uniform.

Please, we sports fans are not stupid. Seeing Clark wearing a jersey of our team won't make us more likely to vote for him, and if he thinks that it will, then he must think sports fans are idiots.

No truth to the rumor that Clark said that if he were the Patriots coach, the team would be 14-0.

Things for you to read while I'm in Florida this weekend...

1) Jon Chait has started an anti-Dean blog over at TNR

2) Michael Totten rocks:

I know it's popular among a certain set of people to say that war is always bad and nothing good ever comes of it. But we need to get one thing straight right now. Mass opposition to democratic nation-building in tyrannical dictatorships will not yield a single accomplishment for human rights. Ever.

3) More Michael: Iraq - Even the Marxists get it.

Bill O'Reilly comes unhinged.

This is just embarrassing. Wesley Clark says that if he were president he would have captured bin Laden by now, and that Bush hasn't done it yet because he lacks the will to do it. Then he pulls that tired act about Bush questoning his patriotism and brings up his military service. If Kerry says the kind of crap Clark had said everyone would be all over him. I think it's time we treat Clark the same way we treat Kerry, as an opportunistic guy who has no real positions and defends himself by accusing others of questioning his patriotism and bringing up the fact that he served in the military.

Jonah Goldberg makes a good point on the Saddam interrogation:

I'm kind of at a loss as to why all of these reports of Saddam being defiant and arrogant are being taken at face value. Keep in mind I've read little news while I've been here and am only going by the cable news networks.

Since when does the CIA -- who's handling Saddam -- leak how super-important interrogations are going? In other words, any news that's allegedly coming out of Saddam's pie hole is news his handlers want leaked. My most hopeful guess is that Saddam's actually singing like a bird but the Americans don't want the bad guys to know it.

The two previous posts made me think of how good news in the future will be spun to make it look like a negative for Bush's chances at re-election. If Dean's possible third-party candidacy and Saddam's capture can be spun to be bad for Bush, I suppose anything can. And since most of these people are so predictable, here's some possible scenarios and what these people will say about how it will affect Bush's re-election chances negatively:

Osama bin Laden is captured
Bad for Bush because: the war on terror is effectively over. We won, and while voters might reward Bush, they'll more likely be focusing on the inadequacies of Bush's domestic policy.

Unemployment goes down
Bad for Bush because: it'll remind voters of the Clinton boom. The latest round of good economic news is caused by Clinton's action's anyway, not Bush's. And unemployment isn't really down, it's just more people saying they're self-employed.

No Democrat gets a majority of delegates; they fight it out at the convention
Bad for Bush because: the Democrat who gets nominated will be battle tested. He'll have the experience of knowing how to negotiate and bring voters together. Meanwhile, the public will be reminded that Bush was given the nomination rather than earning it, much like everything else he has gotten in life. And he stole Florida.

Ralph Nader decides to run
Bad for Bush because: It'll show how right-wing extremist Bush is. Compared to Bush and Nader, the Democratic nominee will be shown as the moderate that he is and voters will flock to him. Also, Nader will rally young people to vote and bring about a Democratic Congress.

Reconciliation between Bush and France and Germany
Bad for Bush because: voters don't like France. And Chirac and Schroeder's shady dealings will make voters think of Bush and Halliburton.

Conclusive evidence of Saddam-al Qaeda ties
Bad for Bush because: his people should have figured it out sooner. The evidence was out there. And if Bush weren't so incompetent he could have prevented 9/11.

A week before the election, The Democratic nominee gets caught in a major scandal
Bad for Bush because: it'll show the Republicans are practicing the politics of personal destruction. Voters are too smart for that. They'll vote for the Democrat to show that they care about issues, not scandal.

And here's the second item that I can characterize as the dumbest thing I've read in electoral politics in a while. William Pfaff writes in the International Herald Tribune that Saddam's capture is a negative for Bush's chances at re-election. Glenn at Hipper Critical gives a thorough fisking of this article that I don't think I can top, so I'll reserve my comments to pointing out that the IHT is owned by the New York Times.

This post from &c. has to be the dumbest thing on electoral politics I've read in a while. One of the anonymous TNR bloggers thinks that Dean would have a good chance to win the presidency if he were a third party candidate against Bush and a pro-war candidate like Gephardt. The logic goes as follows:

For one thing, he'd be the only guy in the race who opposed the Iraq war. And, if all the polls taken over the last year are any indication, that opposition puts him on the same wavelength as at least 35-40 percent of the country. That issue alone could win him the presidency.

Stanley Kurtz points out that not all of those who oppose the war with base their votes solely on that opposition. There are other problems as well. Many of those same people will vote for Gephardt, not Dean, simply because Gephardt would be the Democratic nominee. And no matter how Dean and Gephardt divide up their share of the vote, half the voters will vote for Bush regardless of whether Dean is in the race. If Bush gets at least 45% of the vote, there is no conceivable way that Dean can get more votes than Bush in a three-way race.

Rather than giving Dean a chance to win, a Dean third-party candidacy might be the ticket to Bush winning all 50 states.

Best of the Web is generally a must read, check out this snippet from yesterday:

We've often observed that today's political left has largely abandoned its faith in social progress and become almost entirely a reactionary movement. George Monbiot, a columnist for the London Guardian, provides a nice example in a piece on the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight, which is today.

The anniversary "should be a day of international mourning," moans Monbiot. "December 17 2003 is the centenary of the world's most effective killing machine." Monbiot calls flying machines a weapon of mass destruction; after all, have been used to drop bombs, including nuclear ones (though as the late Bob Bartley pointed out, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved a lot of Japanese lives).

To read the whole thing click the link above and scroll down to "Fear of Flying."

"News" Headline:

He's the Real Ace of Spades
Perpetrator of 9/11 is Still Free

Gee, I wonder why the people complaining about media consolidation never brings up AOL-Time Warner?

Viking Pundit laughs at David Wissing's jab at John Kerry: "Against the leading Democrats and John Kerry, Bush leads all of them." And now comes two national polls that shows Kerry trailing Al Sharpton. With the way things are going, wouldn't Kerry be the favorite to be the next to drop out of the race? Will he even make it to New Hampshire?

Jacob Levy skewers Jacque Chriac and his decision to outlaw religious symbols in schools here. Sneak peak:

Tellingly, in Chirac's speech ons ecularism last week he referred to the wearing of a headscarf in schools as "a kind of assault" against France. The alleged concern for protecting Muslim girls fell away entirely; we were left with the understanding of secularism as requiring religion's invisibility, and the silly claim that any religious symbol visible to the naked eye constituted proselytization.

Mercury isn't a threat to most people ... but the Natural Resources Defense Council wants you to think that it is (think of the children!) so you'd give them money. Alex Tabarrok has the story.

I just noticed today at the supermarket all the balloons they have for kids. There was one with weird colors that says "Happy Kwaanza", one with cartoon characters that says "Happy Holidays", another that says "Season's Greetings", but oddly, none that say "Merry Christmas". Hmmm ...

Bad things happen to people who question the validity of global warming. For example, if you're an editor in a scientific journal who decided to publish a paper questioning the theory that the earth is now at its warmest in a thousand years, you could get fired. Or, if you write a book about it, you can get accused of dishonesty by your own government, even though the ruling against you lack any documentation or elaboration on any specific points. Luckily, Bjørn Lomborg was cleared of dishonesty charges today:

17. December 2003

The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has today repudiated findings by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) that Bjørn Lomborg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" was "objectively dishonest" or "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice".

The Ministry, which is responsible for the DSCD, has today released a critical assessment of the Committee's January 6 ruling. The Ministry finds that the DCSD judgment was not backed up by documentation, and was "completely void of argumentation" for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice.

The Ministry characterises the DCSD's treatment of the case as "dissatisfactory", "deserving criticism" and "emotional" and points out a number of significant errors. The DSCD's verdict has consequently been remitted.

The first article, written by a scientist who supports the global warming theory, goes into more detail on the heart of the dispute over global warming. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not true that all of the scientific evidence currently available supports the theory.

At the heart of the dispute is a chart showing that there has been a spike in global temperature in the last century. Some scientists believe that the chart is wrong and that there was a period in the Middle Ages that was as warm as it is now. Since reliable thermostats were not invented until 1724 and reliable records of temperatures were not kept before the last century, scientists have had to guess the temperature of previous periods by extrapolating from other data. The methods by which the two sides reach their conclusions are too complicated for anyone not familiar with advanced statistics to understand, but basically, if you look at the data one way, you get one result; if you look at it another way, you get another result.

The scientist at the end asks the public not to be so hasty in reaching a conclusion (and takes a shot a Bush on something unrelated), which I think is good advice.

So I see that Madonna is endorsing Wesley Clark for president. I was going to vote for Joe Lieberman in the primary, but now that Madonna is endorsing someone else, I might have to change my vote ...

I better get a second opinion from Ted Rall.

Interesting article from The New Republic on the death penalty in Europe:

Differences between European parliamentary government and the American separation-of-powers system also play a role. Parliamentary government may provide voters with more ideological variety, but it is much more resistant to political upstarts, outsiders, and the single-issue politics on which the death penalty thrives. In parliamentary systems, people tend to vote for parties, not individuals; and party committees choose which candidates stand for election. As a result, parties are less influenced by the odd new impulses that now and again bubble up from the electorate. In countries like Britain and France, so long as elite opinion remains sufficiently united (which, in the case of the death penalty, it has), public support cannot easily translate into legislative action. Since American candidates are largely independent and self-selected, they serve as a much more direct conduit between raw public opinion and actual political action.

Basically, then, Europe doesn't have the death penalty because its political systems are less democratic, or at least more insulated from populist impulses, than the U.S. government. And elites know it. Referring to France, a recent article in the UNESCO Courier noted that "action by courageous political leaders has been needed to overcome local public opinion that has remained mostly in favour of the death penalty." When a 1997 poll showed that 49 percent of Swedes wanted the death penalty reinstated, the country's justice minister told a reporter: "They don't really want the death penalty; they are objecting to the increasing violence. I see this as a call to politicians and the justice system to do more."

Gregg Easterblogg is still keeping track of Dubya's misreported environmental record:

Scientific evidence shows that artificially emitted mercury is accumulating in fish and water and posing health risks, though not necessarily major risks. Mercury is not mentioned in the Clean Air Act, and mercury emissions to the air have never been regulated. A clause in the Clean Air Act essentially allows, however, the EPA to impose restrictions on any pollutant found to be a public health issue. In recent years, the agency has worked on plans to enforce restrictions on mercury emissions to the air.

Tuesday, EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt announced a rule that would cut power-plant emissions of mercury by about one-third right way and by about 70 percent by the year 2018. The announcement made George W. Bush the first president to impose regulation on this toxic element, and also made Bush the president who had imposed the largest-ever unilateral air-pollution reduction program--that is, acting on his own rather than waiting for legislation from Congress. This might have won Bush praise from Democrats and pundits; needless to say it didn't. Any day now Easterblogg expects to read a headline that declares, BUSH ROLLS BACK PROTECTION FOR SUN'S FRAGILE CORONA.

It's not like anything worth writing about happened in Baghdad this week:

The trip from Ali's village to Baghdad takes an hour and a half by bus. As soon as he arrives, the 21-year-old Iraqi heads straight to Abu Abdullah's, just off Sadoun Street in an alley with a number instead of a name. "I don't have a wife," he says. "I don't have enough money to get married. So I come here." At Abu Abdullah's, $1.50 buys 15 minutes alone with a woman. The room is a cell with only a curtain for a door, and Ali complains that Abu Abdullah's women should bathe more often. But the young man says it's still a big improvement from Saddam Hussein's day. Back then, he says, the only establishment for a poor boy like himself was at a Gypsy settlement on the capital's western outskirts. "But now there are plenty of places." He grins. "Now we have freedom."

Lucilly, Iraqis appear to be very intelligent people:

Most Iraqis say they don't know what to do about the vice explosion. Few seem at all enthusiastic about the idea of Saudi-style morality police. "We can't forbid freedom," concedes Fuad al Rawi, a leader of the predominantly Sunni and deeply conservative Iraqi Islamic Party.

"When asked 'How are you?' said the official, Saddam responded, 'I am sad because my people are in bondage.' When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, 'If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?'"

Saddam Hussein in Time magazine this week.

UPDATE Something equally stupid:

WASHINGTON — On Seattle radio yesterday, Rep. Jim McDermott questioned the timing of Saddam Hussein's capture, saying, "I'm sure they could have found him a long time ago if they wanted to."

His comments came during an interview on "The Dave Ross Show" on KIRO-FM.

"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.

Looks as if the Alex Rodriguez for Manny Ramirez deal is getting close to done, at which point the Red Sox will send Nomar Garciaparra away for Magglio Ordonez.

Since Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino dubbed the Yankees "The Evil Empire", I think we need a similar nickname for the Red Sox too. My suggestion? How about the "Coalition of the Schilling"? It keeps with the war theme, and a Google search shows it's original and never been used in a sports context before. Think about the marquee: the Coalition of the Schilling vs. the Evil Empire. I like it!

Here's something that seems really poorly timed, from a side bar in this story with the caption Kevin Millar says...:

Q: You can have Alex Rodriguez, or you can have Manny and Nomar -- who are you taking?
A: I'm taking Alex Rodriguez, Schilling and Foulke.

Q: I don't know if it works that way. You already got those guys.
A: We got those guys, we'll take A-Rod.

Perhaps Kevin Millar is more informed than the rest of us, or maybe this proves how out of the "DirtDog" culture our two superstars exist, or perhaps Millar is just an ass.

My money's on number two.

Oh. My. God.

I think I might have to see Spider-Man 2 four or five times.

Saddam could not have been leading the resistence from that rat hole:

Officials said the high-value target was captured at his home, where he was apparently having a meeting. All 74 Iraqis were captured at the house in Samarra, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Tikrit, officials said. The suspects were young men of military age, and no women were present, officials said.

"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," - Howard Dean from 1998.

via Andrew Sullivan.

A quote from the Guardian, via Andrew Sullivan:

For the first time in its history the Left has nothing to say to the victims of fascism. Defeat explains much of the betrayal. The past 20 years have witnessed the collapse of communism, the triumph of US capitalism and the recognition of the awkward fact that many Third World revolutions are powered by a religious fundamentalism so strange the traditional Left can't look it in the eye. The result of the corruption of defeat is an opposition to whatever America does; a looking-glass politics where hypocrisies of power are matched by equal hypocrisies in the opposite direction.

Hat tip to Gin for linking to this Mass Daily Collegian editorial on unrevealed love.

Industries I'm now in favor of taking down: Alcohol, Instant Messaging, and Nickelodeon until they return both Danger Mouse/Bananaman and Get Smart to afternoon television.

A new book has been published to refute The Protcols of the Elders of Zion with scriptual evidence.

My question: Do the authors of Dismantling the Big Lie believe that taking The Protocols as a serious argument and attempting to refute these arguments by citing "Talmudic and biblical texts and historic attitudes and examples" that they will actually influence any anti-semite? Can't every ignorant anti-semite refute any anti-Protocols argument by simply pointing out that "hey, that Jewish propaganda is just part of the conspiarcy."

Another CAIR provided link: Yet another editorial opposing the French plan to outlaw the hijab and other "obvious" religious symbols.

Sorry, Vance, but there's no way John McCain is leaving the Republican Party so he can be Joe Lieberman's veep on a third-party ticket. McCain supports Bush on foreign policy and disagrees with him only on the domestic front. It'd seem kind of silly for him to leave to join a ticket based on foreign policy when he agrees with Bush in that area. In the last election, McCain repeatedly said he doesn't want to be vice-president and that their only functions are to watch the president's health and attend funerals for third-world leaders. And most importantly, he's not the kind of guy who would leave his party.

Now Lieberman as the next Secretary of State ... that sounds intriguing ...

Yesterday's is here.

1) When will we see the first bin Laden video? He probably won't have nice things to say about Saddam, who went out with a whimper.

2) Howard Dean and John Kerry, class acts. Here's Dean:

But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer.

And Kerry:

If we had done this with a sufficient number of troops, if we had done this in a globalized way, if we had brought more people to the table, we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner. We might have had less loss of life. We would be in a stronger position today with respect to what we're doing.

Let's put these two statements together: we should have done it better, even though there's really no reason to do it at all.

3) I'm more convinced than ever that Bush will easily coast to re-election, not because of the fact that Saddam is captured, but from seeing the reactions of the far left. Yes, they comprise only a small part of the left, but they're the major force behind the Dean candidacy. I'd say that almost all ordinary Americans, including most liberals, were happy about Saddam's capture, didn't have a moment's thought about whether it's going to help Bush's re-election bid, and never tried to think of something negative to say about it. Dean will downplay his anti-war rhetoric after getting the nomination, but you can be sure that Bush will make every effort to let people know about it. I can't imagine blue-collar Democrats and moderates voting for Dean in large numbers. The more interesting question on election day might be how close the Republicans get to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

4) The Dow went down today. I blame Saddam's capture and Bush!

5) If the conventional wisdom is that Bush is strengthened to the point of being unbeatable, Ralph Nader will definitely run again because then he can't get accused of being a spoiler. Which, of course, just makes Bush more unbeatable. Those psychos sure are vicious.

6) Said this yesterday already, but again: woo-hoo!

From ESPN.com:

Cavs Send Davis To Boston

Paul Silas may not have to worry about Ricky Davis anymore. Again. The Cavaliers have agreed to a trade that sends Davis, Chris Mihm and Yogi Stewart to the Celtics for Tony Battie, Eric Williams and Kedrick Brown, reports ESPN Insider Chad Ford.

What is going on over there on Causeway street? Has Danny Ainge suddenly decided that he needs to win now? This better be a huge salary dump for the Celtics, because that's the only way this deal makes any sense.

Maybe players won't keep pulling stunts if the media doesn't make a big deal out of it.

A week that started with Joe Lieberman getting much of the media attention for being stiffed by Al Gore ends with the capture of Saddam Hussein. Seeing all the reactions from the Democratic presidential candidates makes me reaffirm my support for Lieberman and his hopeless campaign. This is his statement on Saddam's capture:

Hallelujah, praise the Lord. This is something that I have been advocating and praying for for more than twelve years, since the Gulf War of 1991. Saddam Hussein was a homicidal maniac, a brutal dictator, who wanted to dominate the Arab world and was supporting terrorists.

He caused the death of more than a million people, including 460 Americans who went to overthrow him. This is a day of glory for the American military, a day of rejoicing for the Iraqi people, and a day of triumph and joy for anyone in the world who cares about freedom, human rights, and peace.

This evil man has to face the death penalty. The international tribunal in The Hague cannot order the death penalty, so my first question about where he's going to be tried will be answered by whether that tribunal can execute him. If it cannot be done by the Iraqi military tribunal, he should be brought before an American military tribunal and face death.

We've got some challenges ahead of us. This is not over. We've got to seize this moment, bring in the international community to help us rebuild Iraq, ask NATO to join us in the peacekeeping, complete our victory over the insurgents and terrorists that are fighting us, and let the Iraqis govern themselves.

No whining about how Bush should have done better or oil or anything that would make one question whether Lieberman really is happy about what happened. His statement seems, and is, genuine, and not begrudged. In fact, the only shot he took was not at Bush but at Howard Dean:

This news also makes clear the choice the Democrats face next year. If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a more dangerous place.

If we Democrats want to win back the White House and take this country forward, we have to show the American people that we're prepared to keep them safe. I consistently supported Saddam's removal for the past decade, and am prepared to do what it takes to win the war on terrorism at home and abroad.

Will any of this make Lieberman any more likely to win the nomination? Probably not. But people like Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, who has positions on the war that I like but is horrible on free trade like every other candidate (including Bush) but Lieberman, make me feel assured that not everyone in the Democratic Party has gone nuts.

Just when it looks as if baseball salaries are under control, the Orioles sign Miguel Tejada for six years at $72 million. As always, it only takes one owner to screw things up. How ludicrous is this? The next highest offer to Tejada leaked to the press was Seattle offering him three years for $27 million. That means Peter Angelos, the Orioles owner, gave Tejada more than two and a half times what another other team is willing to give him.

Ramifications: this will make it likely that Nomar Garciaparra will stick to his demands to the Red Sox for six years at a minimum of $16 million a year. The Red Sox had offered him $50 million for four years. With the two sides so far apart, the Red Sox will probably focus less on re-signing Nomar and more on trading for Alex Rodriguez. Tejada might have just bought Nomar's ticket out of Boston.

UPDATE: Now that they're in the same division, Derek Lowe can give Tejada the crotch chop 19 times a year!

CNN has this picture from the Jaguars-Patriots game today:

"The invasion and occupation of Iraq were not necessary or smart things to do."

The madness continues in the Democratic Underground.

Viking Pundit posts part of a skit from Saturday Night Live yesterday in which an Al Gore impersonator says Bush is the worst leader in the last 500 years and ranks Hitler and Pol Pot third and sixth. I wonder where he would rank Saddam?

I can't find this release on their website, so you'll just have to trust me that the Council on American Islamic Relations published the following statement via their e-mail list:

"As we continue to oppose the war in Iraq, we hope the capture of Saddam Hussein creates a window of opportunity for peace and reconciliation. He must be brought before an international tribunal and then punished for the death and devastation his tyrannical rule imposed on that long-suffering nation and its neighbors.

"Hussein's capture should also facilitate the rapid transfer of sovereignty to a representative Iraqi government and the swift withdrawal of American military forces. It is now time for the Iraqi people, free of despotic rule or foreign occupation, to take control of their own destiny."

If you "continue to oppose the war in Iraq" doesn't that mean you oppose all outcomes of that war? How can you both oppose the war, yet support the hand over of sovereignty to the Iraqi people? The Iraqi people would never have been sovereign if it were not for the war...

From Calpundit's comments, "Gracho" says it all about the people who don't seem particularly happy about Saddam's capture:

You people have a very 'glass half empty' outlook don't you?

According to the Palestinian street.

Rorschach and Nite Owl he ain't, but Steve Den Beste does a masterful job of highlighting exactly how out of touch with reality groups like Human Rights Watch have become.

Some military movie buff just increased Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze's residuals for the holidays.

That 'Powered by Howard' engine may have lost a few horses today, but at least there are still plenty of psychotic lefties hanging around. Scroll down to the post by "Judy" for a good taste.

Or check out this Tim Blair post for the moral ambiguity of the anti-war left.

UPDATE: More morally absent lefties in the comment section of MetaFilter.

re: Where and how to try Saddam.

I want Saddam to be tried in front of an International war crimes tribunal. Ideally this court would be composed of one part international figures and another part Iraqi figures, and would have the international system convict and condemn Saddam.

Hei Lun asked: How do they know it's not a body double?

This was my first thought, but I'm sure that they had Saddam in captivity for long enough to run a DNA test or a dental records test. I also think it's interesting that we haven't heard of any of the body doubles being captured or interrogated, I think the existence of numerous body doubles may have been exagerated or made up.

Although Saddam was captured, my moles tell me that Wilson still remains at large...

Neidermeyer! Saddam!

Dead! Captured!

A few thoughts and observations:
1) How do they know it's not a body double?

2) Currently watching the press conference and a video of Saddam being given a medical examination. I don't think that's what coalition soldiers get when they get captured ...

3) The timing of this is perfect. No conspiracies about how Bush waited until a scandal is breaking or two weeks before the election or an important primary before capturing him even though we know where he is for months, etc. (Though I'm probably giving the Democratic Underground and Indymedia people too much credit.)

4) Personal note: was dead tired this morning, but literally jumped out of bed (and yes, I do mean literally) when I heard Dan Lebatard mention Saddam's capture on ESPN radio. Now if only I can get such good news every morning to help me wake up...

5) Iraqis cheering exuberantly during the press conference, especially two guys near the front who got up and shouted every five minutes. Good for them.

6) Howard Dean is too far ahead for this to hurt him substantially. But this might put the "Dean doesn't have enough delegates so they nominate someone else at the convention" scenario in play.

7) On the other hand, Wesley Clark's statement before the capture that we should hand Saddam over the international court becomes more relevant, and I don't think it's going to help him.