Should it trouble us that all the judges sitting on Saddam’s case were judges under his old regime? Of the five sitting on the case, none were involved in Saddam’s “extra-judicial” (i.e., murder/torture) “courts.” But all were, at one time or another, Ba’athists. According to my sources, the judges joined the Ba’athist party just to get along. Didn’t Gen. Patton get in a lot of trouble for hiring former Nazis and saying they joined the Nazi party just like Americans signed up to be Democrats or Republicans? On a good note, the five who will preside when the trial gets going are ethnically mixed. Presumably there will be no Lance Itos among them.

It’s thoughtful of the Iraqis to schedule Saddam’s trial to begin on November 28. The Miers hearings will be over by then, and by the 28th, the Thanksgiving weekend football games will be over.