Burns and Glanz of the NY Times (I swear that's their real names and no! this is not an article about the Clap!) report that there is considerable outrage about the taunting and teasing Saddam Hussein had to endure on his way to the gallows.
One Shiite-faced Iraqi was heard to call out: NANNY-NANNY BOO-BOO. Our translators believe this is a colloquial expression that roughly translates : " Your camel smells better than you do!"
Saddam on his last mile which in Iraq is measured by the metric system so I guess it was his last kilometer (or was it the metric conversion of an American mile?) was called all manner of insults including weirdo, dopey dildock and banana-nose (the last is actually a complement in Tirkut) and may have been screamed by the attractive Sunni woman holding up her child and adding: "I'll raise him the way you would wish!"
Human Rights organization around the world have begun to call for the outlawing of name-calling and other forms of teasing during executions. Geoffrey Gastrophilus of Amnesty International wrote in the London Times: "I don't care if you hang,shoot or draw and quarter the bastard! At least give him the dignity of a taunt-free death."
Glen Gary and Glen Ross, the twin columnists from different fathers declared in the Glasgow Highlander: "We'd like a few minutes in a room alone with those ruffians. We'd ask them : How would you like it if some called you those names while on the way to a neck-stretching".
The lone dissident voice was heard from Bill Buckley's National Review where Jonah Goldberg chided: "Oh Please! My little sister called me much worse names on my way to the family gallows and I didn't mind on bit!"
Goldberg , of course, was referring to the now famous story first recorded in his autobiography, How to Raise a Neo-Con.
The Goldberg parents, Ernest and Julio (or was it Julius and Ethel) in an effort to make sure no one ever mistook them for the infamous communist spies who sold state secrets for winemaking to the Soviets used a variey of capital punishment methods to discipline their children. Jonah , himself ,is said to have survived hanging, electrocution and watching the complete films of Ronald Reagan non-stop!
George W Bush was asked to comment on the controversy. His only remark was to say: "What does Saddam have to complain about? At least people aren't writing things about him and Barbara in bathrooms around the world".
Clearly Bush was referring to the fact that he recently was named in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the subject of the most incestuous graffiti world-wide.
When reporters tried to clarify that Saddam was not making the complaint (since unless you are Jonah Goldberg , you die from hanging), Bush was heard to say: "Your camel smells better than you do!"
