Duty. Honor. Country. And Dick.

Dick the Dick says veeps don’t respond to congressional subpoenas.

I don’t know how many times a sitting president or vice president have been subpoenaed. But seems to me that if We, the People, want accountability from the Executive branch, then the president and vice president have a duty to answer to the people, as represented in Congress.

We could be in for a fun couple of years.

No Surprise

First off, anyone who can find a rightie blogger who questions the timing of Saddam Hussein’s sentencing — the Sunday before the midterm election — gets a prize.

I haven’t thought about what the prize is. Not much chance I’ll be giving one.

Second, I predict Karl Rove is in for a surprise. I don’t think most of the American public gives a shit about what happens to Saddam Hussein any more. I think most Americans are sick of being jerked around on Iraq by the Bushies. The verdict is not going to change minds that the war was a mistake.

In anticipation of the joyous reaction of Iraqis, Reuters reports,

U.S. and Iraqi forces on Saturday began a security crackdown in the capital and other regions in anticipation of a verdict today in the trial of Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi government issued an around-the-clock ban on all vehicles and pedestrians, beginning Saturday night and lasting until at least Monday morning. The restrictions were also extended to the provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala, and to the city of Mosul, bastions of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency.

The authorities beefed up police and military presence at checkpoints throughout the capital, and all Iraqi troops and police officers were recalled from leave and put on standby in the event of civil unrest.

Saddam faces the possibility of the death penalty, and the authorities fear that a guilty verdict could trigger widespread attacks by supporters of his government.

Those Iraqis know how to celebrate.

Kirk Semple of the New York Times writes,

Many Sunni Arabs today criticized the verdicts as the product of a political charade designed to satisfy the political agendas of the Shiite-led Iraqi government and the Bush Administration.

And even among Mr. Hussein’s detractors and enemies, the euphoria that greeted the verdicts was not unequivocal. A 70-year-old Shiite woman from the Palestine Street neighborhood of eastern Baghdad said the worsening security situation in Iraq robbed her of any feeling of celebration. “The happiness is gone because we are not comfortable now,” she complained.

For the record, I don’t doubt the guy is guilty of atrocities. But as they say, hangin’s too good fer ‘im. For someone like Hussein it would be a worse fate to rot in prison, old, alone and forgotten. But then, me and Jesus are opposed to the death penalty on principle.