Emperor Palpatine, reclining

03.01.2003

Friday's Bleat discusses - among other things - why few call Hussein "evil":

[M]any people are hesitant to put Saddam in Pandemonium's echelon - why? Possibly because he has the characteristic of a comic figure, a cliché, a ridiculous man whose most visible crimes seem to be sins against our notions of good taste. He builds gilded gaudy palaces; he wears silly hats; he fires rifles in the air; he does the obligatory dictator-swimming-in-cold-river bit to prove his virility. He looks almost goofy when he smiles. His rhetoric is larded with mythic grandiosity that amuses the jaded Western ear. Simon from "American Idol" would cut him to shreds: "first, lose the moustache; we're not shooting a porno movie and it's not 1979. Second, I don't believe your gestures. I believe you believe them, but that hardly counts. I don't hear passion. I don't hear hate. I sense hate, but I don't feel hate."

Perhaps this is why so many oppose his ouster by military means - why, it's like bombing a McDonald's to get the Hamburglar.

Posted by Miguel at 09:23 AM

Comments

wow- so brief, insightful and relavant. I actually think this has a lot to do w/ public opinon.

Posted by: bil at March 12, 2003 03:37 PM