"Death By Hanging For Saddam"

NOTE (Friday, December 29, 2006, 8:15 PM PST): For those finding this page today via Google, Technorati, and other search engines, and seeking a round-up of links regarding the immediate details of Saddam’s execution, click here. The post below dates from November 05, 2006.–Ed

That’s the headline that’s currently up on Drudge. Three years prior, immediately after Saddam was captured, Mona Charen wrote “Savor it“:

Savor it. Adolf Hitler deprived the Allies of the satisfaction of executing him. Josef Stalin died in his bed. Pol Pot died of natural causes. But Saddam Hussein, that vicious, depraved worm of a man, was plucked from his rathole. Ah the great warrior. The author of the Mother of All Battles. The man who claimed he would drive the “invaders” from Iraq. The man who forced thousands of Iraqis to sacrifice their lives so he could continue his squalid and luxurious spree in his many palaces.

This modern-day Saladin (another of his conceits) didn’t even have the courage to kill himself in the end, but submitted meekly, with an offer to “negotiate.”

There was a time in our history when such a triumph for our forces would have engendered universal applause and deep gratification in America. But we are not living in such a time. For liberals, no U.S. success is an unmixed blessing, and I don’t mean this in the short-term political sense