The American Spectator

Enemy of the Week

What a week this has been. So many cavemen and women re-emerged. All of them, longtime favorites of ours. To start with the least of them, there's the Tokyo Rose of Baghdad, Scott Ritter, the only person in history Sen. Joe Biden has ever been right about. It was in 1998 that Inspector Ritter appeared before Biden's committee, after Saddam had thrown out his U.N. team, and Sen. Joe dissed Ritter and his low "pay grade." Ever since, it appears, ol' Ritter has been trying to improve his earnings. For all we know, he owns half of Iraq oil by now. He probably gets more per speaking appearance in Baghdad than Bill Clinton does for entertaining the harems of Dubai. And to think his name used to be spelled Scott Ridder, back when he wanted to get rid of Saddam. But once he softened, so did his double consonants. The concern now is that his new friends will want him to harden his first name to Scud.

Up in tree sap country, the inimitable P.M. Jean Chretien has again turned cretinous. Plagiarizing the ageless Walter Cronkite, M. Chretien revealed that the attacks of 9/11 were caused by global poverty and the Western obsession with wealth. Who in a peace-loving frame of mind could disagree? If the 19 hijackers hadn't been so penurious, they would have diverted their own private jets into the World Trade Center and Pentagon instead of having to fly commercial.

Kofi Annan did his part, appearing as a warm-up act for President G.W. Bush, the most mismatched such pairing since Ray Hanania thought he could mix with Jackie Mason. The Bush appearance marked the first electric moment at the U.N. corral since punk Pancho Villa Arafat showed up in six-gun attire back when everyone was giving peace a chance, or at least singing about it. Every double-parked delegate to the U.N. sat before Bush sweating bullets, convinced that one false from any of them would bring about the Massacre on 42nd Street. If they hadn't been so scared stiff they would have hid under their seats. But one look from Bush and they froze. What a waste of a morning for our busy president.

Now look who's come crawling. Mme. Madeleine Albright calls on Mr. Bush to go slow with Saddam. No haste please. Proceed with caution, with all deliberate lack of speed. Keep your powder dry. Only fools rush in. Better the enemy we know than vast neocon-wing conspiracy. This from the same warmonger who once dismissed Gen. Colin Powell for his unwillingness to bomb every rock in the Adriatic. Once a Democrat apparatchik, always a Democrat apparatchik -- though bless her for the advice she gave Michael Dukakis in 1988 to suit up appropriately before riding in a military tank. Her one shining moment will forever outrank Joe Biden's.

Just about now Ms. Albright should be heading to Florida, where her former colleague Ms. Janet Reno requires the services of a security adviser who will protect both the state and her own political future from any further disruptions. The Reno-McBride standoff is unfortunate, though not surprising to anyone who investigated the GOP theft of election 2000. The Bush crowd stole so many votes two years ago there weren't enough left for Democrats to use in their own primary. Even under Communism good people never knew such shortages. Readers are asked, if they have extra votes they can spare, to donate them to Ms. Janet Reno, c/o of Fidel Castro, Havana, Cuba. Every year about this time Ms. Reno travels incognito to Havana to thank Fidel for the cooperation he showed in helping her return Elian Gonzalez to his rightful owners.

In exciting news, Saddam is said to be an eager consumer of Viagra. Won't do him much good, alas, since he's bound to go out in a more traditional bang, so to speak. Nonetheless, if not for ABC News we wouldn't have learned of Saddam's secret little recipe. What's less understandable, though, is why ABC hasn't simply made Scott Ritter Peter Jennings' co-anchor. Who else could be whispering all that biased coverage into Peter's handsome ears? One immediate benefit is that we'd have co-enemy anchors this week, or enemy co-anchors, take your pick. But until it's official, Peter will again have to fly solo as Enemy of the Week, for the week that was.

topics:
Trade, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Military, Iraq, Communism, Oil