ROUND AND ROUND, GIRL YOU TURN ME :

Scent of a Madman (MAUREEN DOWD, September 1, 2002, NY Times)

An intriguing and bizarre documentary, "Uncle Saddam," by the French journalist Joel Soler, airing on Cinemax this fall, paints Saddam as the genocidal Jerry Seinfeld. He gasses the Kurds without flinching and murders his relatives without twitching. But when it comes to personal hygiene, the guy is extremely fastidious.

After he wakes at 5 a.m. and has coffee, the narrator says of the dictator, he moves on to personal hygiene: "This is especially important because Saddam prefers to be greeted with a kiss near the armpit."

As Hussein himself says, "It's not appropriate for someone to attend a gathering or to be with his children with his body odor trailing behind him emitting sweet or stinky smell mixed with perspiration." Never mind the stench of Halabja.

"It's preferable to bathe twice a day, but at least . . . once a day," continues the clean freak who craves dirty bombs. "And when the male bathes once a day, the female should bathe twice a day. The reason is that the female is more delicate and the smell of a woman is more noticeable than the male." He's a cross between Mohamed Atta and Pithecanthropus erectus.

A former Iraqi minister observes: "If you want to meet with Saddam Hussein, there are many protocols: Pat you down, check your body, you have to clean. Saddam is scared to be contaminated by people." No doubt the feeling is mutual.

"Germs terrify the great leader," the minister says. "The smallest cut is dealt with immediately." Odd in a man whose stock in trade is germs. [...]

There's something chilling about the anti-Semitic head of a military power who gasses people obsessing about his mustache. Heil Hussein.

The courtly gents here at Brothers Judd would be the last ones to challenge a woman's time-honored prerogative to change her mind, but in the space of two weeks Ms Dowd has from saying that the administration had not made a case for deposing Saddam Hussein to demanding the we topple the House of Saud first to now saying that Saddam's excessive concern for personal hygiene suffices to show he's an unstable madman. Particularly noteworthy are the final two words quoted above in which she implicitly compares Saddam to Hitler.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 1, 2002 9:58 AM