THE SADDAMITES IN THE WEST:

Iraq seizes on 'moron' remark: Party paper claims U.S. president is hated and ridiculed in West (Jim Bronskill, November 25, 2002, The Ottawa Citizen)

The news organ of Iraq's ruling party has seized upon the reference to U.S. President George W. Bush as a "moron" by Jean Chretien's spokeswoman, using the remark to argue the American leader "is given all sorts of bad names, especially in the West."

The Baath party daily Ath-Thawra pointed yesterday to the recent comment from Mr. Chretien's director of communications, Franoise Ducros, as evidence that Mr. Bush's hard line on Iraq has alienated other countries, including western allies. [...]

In an interview with the program CBC News: Sunday, Mr. Chretien appeared to suggest Ms. Ducros "was defending the Americans rather than attacking them" when she made the comment. Mr. Chretien did not elaborate.

Mr. Chretien obviously believes President Bush to be a sub-moron and therefore "moron" is an improvement. There is a serious side to this though. All of the sniping by the Germans, French, Russians, Canadians, and Democrats has supposedly convinced Saddam Hussein, whose misunderstanding of the West is legendary, that Mr. Bush won't be able to assemble a coalition and won't have the support at home to attack Iraq. This is, of course, utter hogwash, but in effect those who oppose the war are feeding Saddam's intransigence and making war more likely. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 25, 2002 10:16 AM