Paging Carl Rove

Somebody over at the White House has his political nose a little stuffed up:

The Bush administration is opposing efforts by hundreds of Americans held by Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf War to collect damages that would be paid from frozen Iraqi assets.

The administration did not oppose a different group of 179 former hostages and their spouses who sued and were awarded $94 million in damages from the $1.7 billion in frozen assets, but that was before a U.S.-led coalition ousted Saddam earlier this year.

With Saddam now gone, the Justice Department on Monday has asked a federal judge in Washington to dismiss a second suit from 210 former hostages. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 4.

This is yet another one of those bits of tiny idiocy — like the Pentagon trial-balloon to cut hazardous-duty pay in Iraq — that, cumulatively, can sink a reelection effort.