Following the weekend capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein, or as Democratic Party insiders call it, “The day the
music died,” reaction continues to pour in. It was, after all, a
story that took so many by surprise that it was several
milliseconds before TV commentators could recover and note that
Osama bin Laden is allegedly still at large.
Most profoundly affected was candidate Howard Dean, scheduled on
Monday to make a major foreign policy speech that would be highly
critical of the Bush administration. Late Sunday, Dean traveled to
a Middlesex, Vermont warehouse to add the original Iraq section of
his speech to the 500,000 pages of records from Dean’s
governorship, which he’s sealed for a period of ten years. Billed
as a follow-up to his “Sleepless Summer Tour,” Dean spoke briefly
during this “Withholding Information Winter Tour.”
“It’s important for the American people to know where I once
stood on this important issue before I was overtaken by certain
recent events,” Dean said, ceremoniously adding several sheets of
paper to a cardboard box of files and securely taping down the lid,
“And they will know, just as soon as January 10, 2013 rolls
around.”
Dean then hurried back to campaign headquarters for an all-night
session with his advisers. The difficult task before Monday’s
speech was to come up with a verbal gaffe to equal Dean’s infamous
judgment about Saddam’s removal from power: “We’ve gotten rid of
him and I suppose that’s a good thing” or his insistence that “it’s
not our place to take sides” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Coming up with what’s known within the campaign as a Morally
Blinkered Dean Assessment (MBDA), or as it’s pronounced, “mib-dah,”
is no mean feat. By around midnight, contenders included, “Mass
murderer, schmass schmurderer” and “Well, we got him but now what’s
important is getting him a decent barber.”
Whether the ill-conceived formulation would be ready to be
included in Monday’s extended rant was anyone’s guess as the night
wore on. Said one exasperated Dean adviser, “One of history’s most
brutal despots is in chains, so now it’s up to us to try and put
the best possible face on it.”
As dawn broke, it was decided Dean would say that the capture of
Saddam had changed nothing, which is always true of events that
deliver millions from the yoke of oppression and set free people
everywhere rejoicing. For their part, Dean supporters posting
messages on the campaign website were in a deep funk. Saddam’s
unkempt appearance and the fact he was described as “very
disoriented” gave most the feeling he was, in many ways, one of
their own.
Reaction from the other Democratic hopefuls was varied. Asked if
he’d heard that Saddam was trying to survive in a deep hole of his
own making, an unusually candid John Kerry shot back, “Heard about
it? My campaign is living it!” A call to Lieberman campaign
headquarters resulted in this from a spokesman: “We understand that
Saddam Hussein was betrayed by one of those closest to him. Boy,
that Al Gore really gets around.” As for Mr. Gore himself, who last
week came out in favor of President Bush’s policy of preemption but
only in the case of candidates who don’t suck up to him
sufficiently, this reporter was unable to reach the former vice
president to ask why it is that megalomaniacal losers, in recent
years, have tended to grow unsightly beards.
Gore, who reportedly helped write Dean’s foreign policy speech,
also received some bad news as the campaign decided to drop the
section where Dean would claim to have invented the U.N.
But despite the weekend’s events, for U.S. forces the search for
the accomplices who helped keep Saddam in power continues. German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is said to be on the run with
coalition forces in hot pursuit while reports say that several
armored infantry divisions have surrounded French President Jacques
Chirac’s private residence.
And perhaps the most notable of the day’s reactions came from
the deposed dictator himself, just minutes after he was
apprehended. A defiant Saddam confronted his U.S. captors, saying,
“I’m not worried. My sons will get me out of this. I wouldn’t be
surprised if they’re coming to my rescue this very minute. What’s
everybody looking at?”
