BUSH GIVES SADDAM A SUCCESSFUL MAKE-OVER

[kpete]

Saddam Hussein is re-emerging on the "Arab street" as a Sunni hero who stoically endured torment and humiliation before his execution, The New York Times reports Saturday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/world/middleeast/06arabs.html?hp&ex=1168146000&en=c2e8e35861a46754&ei=5094&partner=homepage





From TPM Reader in The United Arab Emirates

I would like to refer to the note about Saddam’s changing image in the Arab world. I have lived in the United Arab Emirates for 8 years. The other night I was taking a little run into Dubai for a bad burrito (for some strange reason the cooks in Dubai do appalling things to Mexican food) and a beer. My taxi driver, Amjed, a Pakistani who has been driving taxi in Sharjah and Dubai for 25 years, was unusually quiet on this trip. Finally, after we got going on the freeway, he asked me,
“So, Saddam gone, eh?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He is dead. He was a bad man. But it won’t change the troubles in Iraq.”

“He was bad man,” Amjed agreed. “You see?”

“No. I didn’t see it.”

“I see on television. He was brave.”

“I heard that.”

“He was bad man. In end, he was brave. He was not afraid. In end he was brave man. Was good.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. We drove on in silence. When we got to the bar, I thanked him, tipped him, walked in, and ordered a cold pint of Stella.


http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011817.php

[pretzel4gore]

1. i don't think he was as bad as the pig says...

mind you, i just take everything the pig says, turn it 180 degrees and consider that the truer truth...

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Shrub is starting to make the worst people look good.

[CJCRANE]

4. I was just thinking that.

Somehow * manages to give his enemies the moral high ground.

[Greybnk48]

3. Thanks to the idiot in chief for this.

Saddam did come across as strong, dignified, and pious, no doubt about it. Quietly challenging the manhood of the rabble screaming at him, and saying a prayer as they hung him. No matter how ruthless or bad he was in actuality, this image is what will stay with the people.

[magellan]

5. There is no debating it, is there?

“He was bad man. In end, he was brave. He was not afraid. In end he was brave man. Was good.”

A kangaroo court trial. Bravery in the face of death. Dignity in the face of taunts from his executioners. In their rush to vengeance, the Iraqi puppet government and Bush** have unwittingly turned a tyrant into a martyr.

How many more of these catastrophic successes must we bear?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. The reverse King Midas touch --

Everything Bush touches turns to shit. Who else could take a nasty, thuggish tin-pot dictator like Saddam and turn him into a hero?

[rusty_parts2001]

7. King Midas = King George

What desperate straits he's put us in.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Heck of a job, Georgie, heck of a job

In just 6 short years, Bush took the image of a man who everyone believed was a brutal tyrant and turned him into a sympathetic figure.