Once again, Saddam has miscalculated. He’s living in the wrong
place, and prone to lose his temper whenever appears in public. Had
he joined the smart set in the U.S. instead, he’d never have to
scream at any judge let alone announce he’s “not afraid of
execution.” If not so prideful he could have appeared with Robert
Redford the other night as one of the Kennedy Center honorees. The
two men certainly have much in common, and not just because each is
considered a golden boy in his respective country.
Last spring Mr. Redford called for Watergate-like investigations
of the Bush presidency, in the hopes of a resolution not unlike the
one he was part of in All the President’s Men. We can’t
repeat here what Mr. Saddam has said along similar lines. Yet there
was Mr. Redford on Sunday night, sharing a box with the devil
president at the Kennedy Center. Earlier in the day, at a White
House reception, Mr. Redford heard himself praised by the same
president as “an active, passionate, committed citizen,”
“extraordinarily handsome,” “most watchable and credible.” Imagine
what the president would have said about Saddam in such magnanimous
circumstances. (And imagine what Codename OBL must be thinking
about this pushover president.)
Had he accepted Democratic overtures of asylum, Saddam would
have doubtless settled in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its beloved
governor, Mark Warner, who’s now completing his term, has the
friendly disposition of a U.N. peacekeeper. Recently Gov. Warner
commuted the death sentence of a convicted murderer, on the
purported grounds that he didn’t want to be the one signing off on
the 1,000th execution since the restoration of the death penalty in
the U.S. twenty-five years or so ago. It would have made much more
sense if Saddam had been the one flirting with that milestone,
given his own expertise in disposing of 1,000 lives in twenty-five
minutes or so.
Everyone always knew Rep. Nancy Pelosi was a little slow, but
this time we could see turtles outrunning her, and some of them
appeared to be going in reverse. St. John Murtha came out against
the Iraq War on November 17, much to the nearly unanimous delight
of the Democratic congressional caucus. It wasn’t until November 30
that Ms. Pelosi went on the record to endorse the Murtha Plan. We
suspect the delay was caused by Ms. Pelosi’s concern that any
withdrawal from Iraq could hasten the overturning of Roe v.
Wade.
Amid all the cutting and running, next to no one had time to pay
adequate tribute to Ted Koppel on his withdrawal from
Nightline territory last month and the beginning of what
is being called the Post-Ted Koppel Era. It is destined to collide
with the Post-Peter Jennings Era, now that Bob Woodruff, the cloned
son of Bob Woodward and Judy Woodruff, has been named an ABC
Co-Anchor.
Mr. Woodruff will share duties with Ms. Elizabeth Vargas, who
should have been named Jennings’ sole successor, pure and simple,
but because she is a woman it was thought she lacks the toughness
and mathematical and scientific skills the job requires.
Meanwhile, although she covered Katrina, live and in person on
some occasions, Vargas has been outhustled on that beat by Brian
Williams, he of the Post-Tom Brokaw Era. According to the
gregarious Howard Kurtz, whose profile of Williams yesterday was
lengthy and ponderous enough to have been penned by David
Halberstam, the thinking used to be that Williams was a
lightweight. But that was before he traveled to Katrina country and
made the beat his own. Now he gives his producer hell if the NBC
Nightly News runs “without something Katrina-related.” No
lightweight could be that bird-brained.
Which brings us to Rep. Jim Moran’s former sparring partner,
ex-Rep. Randy Cunningham. Perhaps it was the permanent brain damage
Moran caused him, but in any case Cunningham accepted bribes worthy
of someone desiring to live in one of Saddam’s fabulously tacky
palaces. On top of everything else, he insisted on driving a
Rolls-Royce that’s been valued at about $30,000, if you combine
purchase price and repairs on the presumably previously owned
vehicle. What kind of self-respecting sleazoid agrees to own such a
clunker? Was it a counterfeit Rolls made in Macau? Or was it proof
positive that it’s EOWs like Randy that confirm his is indeed the
Stupid Party?
