Free Republic

The Iraq Follies President Bush seems to be hinting that he hopes someone will shoot Saddam Hussein or that Saddam will decide to retire. All things are possible, but Saddam isn't the retiring type, and he certainly did not reach age 65 in his job by being an easy target. More than a decade ago, I wrote that the first George Bush had inadvertently provided Saddam with guaranteed protection against a coup. By making war on the Iraqi people and by so obviously being in the pocket of the Israelis, the United States assured that any Iraqi who tried to...

On Friday I telephoned my colleague who edits this page and said that I was thinking of writing this column about gold and currencies. I outlined my argument, that the dollar is still too high, that the US external deficit is not sustainable, that the European and Japanese economies are suffering from low growth, that the euro and the yen are attractive only compared to the dollar. I added that gold was making new highs, and that the preference for gold showed the lack of confidence in the main currencies. On Saturday morning I opened the Business section and found...