The late economist John Maynard Keynes said it best, "In the end, we all die." It's just that dictators like Saddam Hussein believe that they live and breathe as demi-gods who will never expire, immune to the laws of mortality and morality. They rule as arbitrary dispensers of who gets to live and who gets to die. It's inconceivable for a tyrant seated on his palace throne to envision that one day his fate will be permanently secured by a thickly coiled hemp noose.
Saddam's death, was however, premature, especially if you were a Kurd. For obvious political and sectarian reasons, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's Shiite crew wanted a quick, abrupt end to the Butcher of Baghdad, even if the trial for the genocidal killing of tens of thousands of Kurds is far from complete. But, to steal some choice words from the late Gerald Ford, they wanted the country's nightmare to be over.
Following Saddam's execution, a White House press release from Crawford seemed bland, muted and unconvincing. "Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq" is a far cry from Paul Bremer's war whoop "We got him" in December 2003.
With Saddam's decline, probably comes that U.S. troop surge, The ebb and flow.
It's easy to entertain the suspicion that if Cheney and Bush had their way, these experienced ranch hands would have prefered to have gone all Fargo on Saddam-- you know, toss him into a wood chipper, just like the Baathist secret police used to do to their victims, even asking them if they preferred to go feet or head first into the spinning metal blades.
Despite flouting the Geneva Conventions and pretty much endorsing the rule of torture over the rule of law, give the Bush people some partial credit for not getting "medieval on Saddam's ass." He did have legal representation. He wasn't thrown into a vat of boiling oil. Caught in an age-old religious and tribal war, the Sunnis and Shiites are better suited for dispensing hasty, pre-modern justice.
So, yes, it's been an emotionally exhausting week for media junkies: Ford, James Brown, Saddam. Though I think a week of national mourning for the accidental president is a bit extreme. Flags half-mast on the greens at all Palm Springs golf courses would have been just fine.
It's been the mother of all news weeks.