Out of hand

(This was appended to the comment below: I just made it a separate entry. Sorry for any confusion I may have created.)

I didn't bother making an explicit response to the preceding comment because it never occurred to me that there could be more than one.

I'll say it: Hooray!

But it appears that a surprising number of people are sorry Saddam was captured. And not just the Palestinians. (Numerous bloggers report earlier drafts of that article contain this sentence: "The former Iraqi ruler was a hero to many Palestinians for his stand against Israel and its U.S. ally, as well as for helping families of Palestinians dead in an uprising." It took Reuters a few more paragraphs to acknowledge that those "Palestinian dead" were dead by their own hand--that is, suicide bombers.) Democratic Underground is at it too, but damned if I'll link to it. We can count our blessings that Indymedia is in the middle of a server upgrade and isn't allowing postings at the moment, but that can't last forever. (I wonder if they'll conclude there was a conspiracy to capture Saddam when they were unable to comment on it?)

And many who will not say they're sorry are coming up with ever more inventive ways to say it doesn't matter, Bush is the real evil.

Or is it Howard Dean? Ask Joe Lieberman:

If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a more dangerous place.

And the BBC reporters' log reminds us whose side they're on:

The prime minister has just delivered a speech which he's wanted to give for a long time. Tony Blair is pleased not just with what's happened-Saddam's capture-but also how. We all imagined that if the Americans got a tip off they would just bomb somewhere off the face of the earth.

But he was captured without a shot being fired. He's looking healthy, he's not been tortured, he's being handed over to Iraqi justice.

LATER: I had completely disregarded the references to the Democratic National Committee's official...well, whatever it is. I've seen it described as a blog, but it's more of a message board. It isn't difficult to extract a quote out of context and paint a whole group (or party) with it, left or right, and I like to think I have better things to do.

Anyway, it is called Kicking Ass and the following comment, mentioned by Taranto at WSJ's Best of the Web, is not an isolated out-of-context quote, but actually reasonably typical:

Well, tha capture of Sadaam takes the 'failure to capture' issue off the table.

Now that the economy is picking up (mall was packed yesterday), Iraq is getting better, prescription drugs on the way, education spending at an all-time high, no further terrorist attacks——what is left?

Oh, yes, the capture of Bin Laden.

If that happens, we are completely sunk.

Don't believe me? Here are some more bon mots that'll make your jaw drop (or your skin crawl), from the same page:

I personally don't care too much that Hussein was caught - he never did anything to me, but a friend of mine died in 9/11 attack.

They are making the capture of Hussein into a big deal - but it still doesn't mean all that much to me.

You are right. Hussein's capture doesn't mean that much to me either. I know the Iraqi's must be breathing a sigh of relief though. It doesn't change that much of the real terrorism threat since he was contained to being a threat only to his own people.

Now if we can do something about GWB and remove that threat from the world, we will have accomplished something. I know I need to be patient until next November for that. The impeach Bush movement is rolling but unless they impeach his whole regime, we'll go from the frying pan into the fire with Cheney.

I have never been as confident that the Republicans will win an election as I am after reading what the Democrats have to say about this one.