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Saddam Hussein watched the televised election of Iraq's new president from his jail cell yesterday and was "clearly upset", a senior official said. Jalal Talabani, a former Kurdish guerrilla commander and sworn enemy of Saddam, was elected to the highest office in a parliamentary ballot, bringing a new government a step closer. Under Saddam the only way Mr Talabani would have left his northern redoubt was in chains or a coffin, but yesterday he arrived in Baghdad in a blaze of triumph. Adel Abdul-Mahdi, a Shia who is finance minister in the outgoing government, and Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab...

<p>The gym has Fox television on, and perhaps I should be grateful, because otherwise it would not have dawned on me just how popular and widely embraced stupid is. By stupid, I don't really intend insult. Stupid is a mental outlook that affirms the crude and base while eschewing the noble and thoughtful. It is an attitude of mind that can be adopted by both low lights and bright lights.</p>

I have a project. I'm collecting the most outrageous, lunatic, and hatefilled liberal quotes available.We all know the left has been losing it lately. Let's document it.

Was the capture of Saddam Hussein a major victory for the United States? It was certainly a victory in the extended Iraq war. It was a victory for President Bush over the man who plotted to kill his father. It was a victory for the U.S. military and its intelligence service -- especially for the lieutenant and the corporal who figured out how to find him. It was a victory for the Republican Party's plan to keep a stranglehold on American politics. But was it, as the president told us, a victory in the ''war on terrorism''? Despite the media...

Capture Won't Mean Much I don't believe the capture of Saddam Hussein will have any effect on the guerrilla war being conducted against Americans and their Iraqi allies. Saddam's power was always his ability to command and control. The day he went on the run, he lost that power. He couldn't command or control anyone. On the contrary, he was at the mercy of those willing to hide him and those who might choose to betray him. As his pictures show, he's a tired, worn-out old geezer. One has to give him credit for being much more slippery than the...

1) The Nomination: In every poll that counts at this time of year – that is, the early state-by-state polls, Gov. Dean is positioned well. In Iowa, the first caucus state, Dean has gained the lead. In New Hampshire, the first primary state, Dean has a solid, double-digit lead and a firm commitment from a remarkable 82% of those who support him. Dean also leads in recent polls in Arizona, Michigan, and New York. No competitor can rightly claim the second place title, as different candidates jockey for the position directly behind Dean in various states. Howard Dean has surged...

On Monday, National Post columnist Colby Cosh predicted the left would try to figure out some way to disparage Saddam Hussein's capture. We were skeptical. Finding the Iraqi dictator was plainly a massive victory both for U.S.-led coalition forces and freedom-loving Iraqis. Left-leaning media outlets, we expected, would have the good sense to realize that any effort to present this news in a negative light would come across as contrived and petty. But as the Monday-night installment of CBC's National news telecast made clear, we were wrong. All week, millions of people in Iraq have been celebrating Saddam's capture. So...

Never has so many congratulations been offered through such painfully gritted teeth. European leaders, Democratic politicians and media Big Feet all felt compelled to celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein. After all, as the guardians of the moral conscience of mankind they are supposed to disapprove of dictatorship, torture and mass murder even more than most people. But since welcoming the downfall of Saddam also meant giving aid and comfort to U.S. President George Bush, that took all the fun out of it. Listening to European politicians as they followed up their praise for the skill and bravery of the...

<p>American soldiers trapped him like a cornered rat hiding in a hole. And when he was caught, Saddam Hussein, the blustering, bloody tyrant who asked others to die for him, didn’t even try to defend himself with the weapons at his disposal.</p>

The US president is reflecting his own brutish view of the world It has always seemed mistaken to perceive Iraq as the epicentre of the "Iraq crisis". Events there represent only one manifestation of a much more profound issue: how the rest of the world should manage its relationship with the United States. This will be our great foreign policy dilemma for at least the first half of the 21st century. America's wealth and power are inescapable realities. It seems self-indulgent to lavish emotional and intellectual energy on deploring the shortcomings of the world's only superpower. From Tony Blair downwards,...

Libya's leader Colonel Gaddafi has said his country sought to develop weapons of mass destruction capabilities but will dismantle this programme completely, Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced. "This decision is an historic one and a courageous one and I applaud it," Mr Blair said. Colonel Gaddafi had told him the process of dismantling the programme would be "transparent and verifiable", the prime minister said in a statement from Durham Cathedral. The range of all Libya's missiles would be restricted to "no more then 300km, he added. Mr Blair said Britain had been engaged in talks with Libya for nine...

<p>LOU DOBBS ON CNN opened with: "Tonight, President Bush made a dramatic and unexpected announcement..."</p> <p>Suzanne Malveaux: "This is the work of nine months of behind-the-scenes-negociations..."</p>

George W. Bush has to restrain himself from running victory laps to celebrate the Saddam Hussein capture. Republican leaders are gleeful about facing a Democratic ticket likely led by Howard Dean. So, it may seem odd, even perverse, to suggest that rooting the Iraqi dictator out of his hole might actually be an ace-in-the-hole for Democrats. For starters, seizing Hussein shifts the focus of the hunt for America's most dangerous enemies from Iraq to the rugged Afghanistan-Pakistan border where Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the deposed leader of the Taliban, are said to lurk. As elusive as Hussein was...

Readers are invited to send in the most strained and mealy-mouthed statements from the devastated press and anti-war politicians and activists following the capture of Saddam. First up: Saddam's paid-up British anti-war activist, George Galloway: "This will not stop the Iraqi resistance. if anything, it may set the resistance free, if you like, from the cloud of Saddam Hussein, and transform it into a purely national resistance movement without the charge that it's being controlled from behind by the deposed president." Galloway must be worried sick about what Saddam might tell the coalition. So must Chirac. - 4:23:59 PM

If we don't already have one, I think we need a thread demonstrating the breadth of the Democrats and their allies hopes against America. There have been many scattered quotes through FR of posters from DU and other sites, as well as comments by members of the media despairing that the U.S. is succeeding in Iraq, and that the economy is growing. Please help out and post links and brief (documentable/documented) quotes here.

<p>Well gosh golly it took only upward of 500 dead U.S. soldiers (and counting) and more than 2,500 U.S. wounded (and counting) and more than 10,000 dead innocent Iraqi citizens (and counting) and countless tens of thousands of hapless dead Iraqi soldiers (and counting).</p>

I am stunned with admiration at the mental agility of the anti-war lobby. Having spent months taunting George W Bush and Tony Blair for their failure to capture Saddam Hussein, and thus accomplish one of the most fundamental aims of the "illegal war" in Iraq, it was able to recover its composure almost instantaneously when the worst happened. Within minutes of Paul Bremer pronouncing the words "We got him" to ecstatic cheers from Iraqi journalists, there were solemn-faced experts crowding on to my television screen to proclaim that the capture was largely irrelevant, or positively counter-productive, to the present difficulties...

Ok, he looks like Saddam Hussein. He sounds like Saddam Hussein. And, yes, he has the same DNA. But can we be sure that it is, in fact, the former Iraqi leader? And not just some poor turkey? Another of his hapless body doubles? Or even a clone? Turkey. Consider the word and its significance in the region, not simply because Turkey is a nation in the neighbourhood. In all its other forms, the word turkey refers to the giant North American chook and is a case of mistaken identity if not deceptive packaging. You see, the Pilgrim Fathers exporting...

Saddam's hero-like image shattered in Arab eyes By Samia Nakhoul DUBAI (Reuters) - For many Arabs Saddam Hussein's meek surrender to U.S. forces marked the total humiliation of a man who portrayed himself as a champion of Arab rights and the reincarnation of the 12th century Muslim warrior Saladin. Repeated broadcasts of close-up footage of Saddam submitting to medical exams at the hands of U.S. soldiers were seen with disbelief, shame and disgust. Of course many were revelling in his spectacular humiliation. But even those who predicted his downfall did not imagine it would be that way -- plucked by...

<p>The capture of Saddam Hussein was praised by the Democratic presidential candidates yesterday, but most took the opportunity to reiterate what they see as President Bush's failed Iraqi policy or take shots at front-runner Howard Dean, who opposed the war.</p>