More WSJ picks...
The Associated Press has a headline that really makes us skeptical: "Democrats Mostly Pleased by Arrest."
All right, we believe some of them are, such as Dick Gephardt, who's quoted as saying: "I supported this effort in Iraq without regard for the political consequences because it was the right thing to do. I still feel that way now, and today is a major step toward stabilizing Iraq and building a new democracy."
But John Kerry "urged the Bush administration to involve more U.S. allies in the rebuilding of Iraq and criticized a Pentagon memo that prohibited companies from countries that did not provide troops for the war from bidding on lucrative reconstruction contracts there."
On "Fox News Sunday," the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, elaborated: "Diplomacy is critical. You need to reach out here and bring other countries to the table. It's the lack of the United States' willingness to share the authority and responsibility that is keeping other countries from being involved."
Kerry has a rather blinkered view of diplomacy; he seems to equate it to "making nice with your adversaries." Sometimes, of course, that's a wise thing to do, but this isn't one of them. This is a time for recrimination and finger-pointing! The French and others actively worked to obstruct the liberation of Iraq and keep this vicious tyrant in power. We didn't need their help, we did it without them, and rewarding them now would send precisely the wrong message to all the nations of the world. They must pay for their perfidy so that everyone else will know such betrayal has a price. That's diplomacy too.
"I hope this will see a diminishing in the violence against American soldiers in Iraq," Wesley Clark said in the Netherlands. We hope it will see a diminishing in Wesley Clark's badmouthing the mission of American soldiers in Iraq. No word if Clark thinks Saddam belongs in a Dutch prison
http:// www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004415#dutch .
Howard Dean seems to be getting a little better at hiding his dismay over American success. "I think the first order of business is to say this is a great day I congratulate the Iraqi people and to say that this is a great day for both the American military and the American people and for the Iraqi people," he said.
Joe Lieberman, the most consistently anti-Saddam of the Dems, was also the most enthusiastic. "Praise the Lord," he said. "This is something that I have been working on with a lot of other people, advocating and praying for, for more than 12 years since the Gulf War of '91."
According to National Review Online http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_12_14_corner- archive.asp#021186 , Lieberman also had this to say on "Meet the Press": "If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would be in power today." It should also be noted, however, that if Al "Quagmire" Gore's ravings last week http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004404 reflect his actual views, then Saddam Hussein would be in power if Joe Lieberman were vice president today.
Oh, and isn't it a sweet coincidence that Saddam's capture occurred on the third anniversary of Gore's concession http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=65000786 ?
You Don't Say http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,- 3504267,00.html
"Saddam Capture Good for Bush in Many Ways"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 14
'If That Happens, We Are Completely Sunk'
Thank goodness Saddam surrendered peacefully, so none of the American servicemen who took him were injured or killed. There may, however, be some casualties on the home front. We wouldn't be surprised if Saddam's capture causes some members of the Angry Left to choke to death on their own bile.
Buzzflash.com http://buzzflash.com/ 's lead headline this morning was both petulant and plaintive: "Saddam Hussein Captured in Tikrit. This Does Not Absolve George Bush of His Lies!" As we write, the Buzzflashers are waxing conspiratorial: "Saddam Removed From Iraq. Karl Rove Has a Story for Him to Tell, and It's Time to Start Rehearsing."
Unlike the Democratic presidential candidates, some grass-roots Dems are unable to contain their gloom over the wonderful news. Here's a post by someone called ikojo at DemocraticUnderground.com http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=535095
(quoted verbatim):
*** QUOTE ***
I had a horrible feeling in my stomach this morning when I saw that Hussein had been capatured.
This is a BIG boost for *. This will be used in campaign literature. It will make Dems and others who opposed the war look bad as well. I don't regret opposing shrub's war of aggression on Iraq but it sure will be hard for the candidates now, unless they press the Where's Osama issue but since a majority of Americans already believe that Hussein was behind 9/11/01 it hardly matters.
All of a sudden I am not confident he will lose in 2004.
Please boost my confidence in shrub's defeat in November 2004.
Look what he has going for him right now:
Dow over 10,000 Hussein captured The pug CONvention is going to be in NYC around the time of the 9/11 anniversary
A complacent and compliant right-wing corporate controlled media all too willing to act as an arm of the pentagon and white house press room. His administration did what his daddy did not, supposedly captured Hussein.
The conspiracy theorist in me says that if this is REALLY Hussein then why didn't * and his media minions not wait until Monday to announce his capture?
Needing encouragement that * can be defeated. Now the stuff about Halliburton overcharging the government will be placed on the back burner as the corporate media celebrates the capture of Hussein.
Not feeling hopeful right now. I have a lot of fear of what he could do if given a second term.
*** END QUOTE ***
Here's a sampling of comments from "Kicking Ass," the official blog of the
Democratic National Committee http://www.democrats.org/blog/comment/00010255.html?seg=3 (also quoted verbatim): -Pam Bergren: "I personally don't care too much that Hussein was caught--he never did anything to me."
-"marsh": "This is supposed to be a war on terror, not a war on tyranny."
-Erik Latranyi: "Well, tha capture of Sadaam takes the 'failure to capture' issue off the table. Now that the economy is picking up (mall was packed yesterday), Iraq is getting better, prescription drugs on the way, education spending at an all-time high, no further terrorist attacks--what is left? Oh, yes, the capture of Bin Laden. If that happens, we are completely sunk."
This raises an interesting question: What will Saddam's capture do to the Democratic presidential race? One theory is that it may derail Howard Dean. Today's New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/ 2003/12/14/politics/campaigns/14DEAN.html?pagewanted=all reports that Dean plans to deliver "the first major foreign policy speech of his campaign" tomorrow. The Times quotes from what apparently is the prepared text: "The removal of Saddam Hussein was accomplished in the wrong way, at the wrong time, with inadequate planning, insufficient help and at unbelievable cost." It will be interesting to see if he actually says that tomorrow.
Now, if Democratic voters are rational, one would expect them to turn away from Dean and toward Joe Lieberman or Dick Gephardt, the two candidates who have been more or less consistently anti-Saddam. But that's a big "if."
We argued on March 17 http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003210#landslide that Dean was the man to watch, because he "seems to have struck a chord with the far- left, Bush-hating wing of his party, which has an outsize influence in the primaries and caucuses." We weren't sure we believed it at the time. After all, the fighting was about to begin in Iraq, and there was little doubt America would win. But sure enough, Dean took off like a rocket, helped along by the defeatist media and their cries of "quagmire." If enough Democratic primary voters hate Bush more than they hate Saddam ("he never did anything to me"), America's success in Iraq may not hurt Dean at all-- till November, of course.
If you believe that people vote "strategically," there's another reason to think Saddam's capture could be good for Dean. One of the chief arguments for the non-Dean candidates, especially Wesley Clark, has been that they, unlike Dean, are "electable." But electability matters only if President Bush is beatable. If success in Iraq, combined with good economic news, makes him look like a shoo-in by January, Dems in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere may forget about electability and vote for Dean, figuring if they're going to lose anyway, they may as well go down in a blaze of fury.