A November surprise?

October 16, 2006

U.S. officials have been helping guide the [tag]Saddam Hussein[/tag] [tag]trial[/tag] from the outset, and today we learn that the case should be wrapped up soon — just in time for a certain domestic event.

A [tag]verdict[/tag] against [tag]Saddam[/tag] [tag]Hussein[/tag] and seven co-defendants charged with crimes against humanity in connection with an anti-Shiite crackdown in the 1980s will be announced Nov. 5, a senior court official said on Monday.

Sentences for those found guilty will be issued the same day, chief investigating judge Raid Juhi told The Associated Press.

Hmm, Saddam Hussein will almost certainly be convicted and sentenced to death on Nov. 5. You don’t suppose Bush administration officials pushed for a date that would fall just 48 hours before the midterm elections, do you? It’s not as if politics has ever been allowed to dictate events in Iraq before, right?

Oh wait….

This is so astoundingly transparent that truly any idiot voter should be able to get it.

The DNC should run a few ads, and D’s on the talking head show circuit should all start noting how cynical it is that the R’s have engineered events in Iraq to help their selfish electoral cause, and how we wish they would be so successful or spend as much time trying to engineer safe streets, reliable power and water, or a functioning government in Iraq to help our sons and daughters and all of the people of Iraq. Of course Saddam will be found guilty and executed, we should admit. And that is just, but if his incarceration hasn’t stopped the bloodshed, his execution wont either.

If we did that for the next several weeks, it might not make the verdicts backfire, but it would make them “old news” by the time they come out so they wont move the meter much in the Rethugs’ direction.

  • Hmm, Sunday, Novermber 5th. And in time for the Sunday morning news shows where administration officials can trumpet their “accomplishments” in bringing Saddam Husein to justice.

    Linkage. Absolutely. Bush and Rove plan their bathroom breaks around the news cycle.

    It probably won’t move too many votes, however. Iraq is a bust for the Bushies and nothing short of plans for withdrawal could have much impact.

  • I suppose that the date for carrying out the sentence will be just in time to serve as a christmas present for “dear old dadie….”

  • That’s it? Surely the Republicans came up with something better than that. Why remind voters of the Iraq war two days before the election? Sure Saddam’s capture and trial could be pointed to as the single success of the fiasco, but the situation has gotten worse not better since then.

    A few well-timed ads and talking points showing how Iraq is now a breeding ground for terrorists, the country’s in the midst of a civil war, and who many American lives and tax dollars have been wasted would really stifle the congratulatory back-patting from Republicans.

  • I honestly don’t think this will have the slightest impact on the election except to give GOP spinners SOMETHING to say on the Sunday talk shows. The list of things that were supposed to make the war a success but didn’t is about the size of the Chicago phone book at this point.

  • Of course, that will get people thinking about Iraq again.

    I don’t think that will help Republicans. After all, $300 billion for this?

    In any case, I doubt it was necessary for Americans to tell the Iraqis that this date would work well. If the Iraqis didn’t know how to manipulate their foreign handlers, they wouldn’t hold the positions they have.

  • Republicans are masters of unintended consequences and who knows what Iraqi discontent a puppet government death sentence to a former leader might spark?

  • Um. Who cares? Saddam has become irrelevant in America and ShrubCo worked to make him irrelevant. They had to: The original reason for taking him down (WMD) turned out to be a lie and they don’t want us thinking about the fact that thousands of people have been maimed and killed because they lied.

    Bringing democracy to the Iraq people? OK, you told us that’s already happened because the act of voting summons the magical democracy fairies. And frankly, some of the pictures…all of the pictures we see from Iraq make democracy look rather messy.

    So for at least a year it’s been all about the terra. ShrubCo has tried to say there is a Saddam/Terra connection but the only connection most people see is there was the lack of terrorism in Iraq while he was in power. Then there are the gosh darn experts with their stupid facts who have said there was no kissy-face between Saddam and Osama bin Laden. Saddam had no time for bin Laden, he was too busy playing kissy face with Rumsfeld and (ahem) Shrub the Senior. Oops.

    I think this will get a big yawn from the majority of the American public and God knows what horrors it will set off in Iraq. Thanks Prezint MonkeyShines! May your victims rise from their graves (marked and unmarked) and haunt your ass til the day you make the world a vastly better place via a long delayed and unlamented death.

  • given the history of this trial and the news coming out of iraq, i have no doubt that the judge and his family will be murdered by a death squad on saturday, pre-empting the verdict, and that will be the news on the sunday talk shows.

  • Well the October (or Cocktober as the wags at Wonkette call it) Surprise wasn’t what the Repubs were hoping for.

    Wake Me up when Sept Ends (as sung by Karl Rove)
    The last session has come and passed
    The poll bump could never last
    wake me up when october ends

    Looks like my promise came to pass
    Foleygate blew up so bad
    wake me up when October ends

    There goes another Republican
    booted from the House
    Denying Abramhoff again
    deceiving is what we are

    As my power rots away
    hope no one remembers what I said
    wake me up when October ends

    The last session has come and passed
    The poll bump could never last
    wake me up when october ends

    Jong Il’s testing nukes
    couldn’t shake off Foleygate
    wake me up when October ends

    here comes Saddam again
    screaming it’s a farce
    trying to scare again
    just the clowns that we are

    see my repuation drop
    but never forget what I wrought
    wake me up when October ends

    The last session has come and passed
    The poll bump could never last
    wake me up when october ends

    Libbie predictions have come to pass
    six years have gone so bad
    wake me up when october ends
    wake me up when october ends
    wake me up when october ends

  • Yes, I think this could backfire since it will probably cause huge violence in Iraq. Or maybe they’re not planning on telling the Iraqis.

  • Before the 2004 election, the Pakistanis were being pressured to capture Osama so the timing of this has puppet strings hanging all over it.

    Ironically, one of the proposed solutions to the chaos and civil war in Iraq is the creation of a strongman style of government.

    So, remind us again, how has getting Saddam made us safer?

  • Would Saddam have the right to appeal a death sentence, thus drawing out the process even more, or would that be too pre-9/11?

  • There seems more risk here for Republicans than benefit. Only the True Believers still support the war.Putting Saddam back in the headlines risks another rehash of the lies that got us into war. And if there’s a dramatic upsurge in violence, headlines of more deaths will decimate any benefit Bush might get. This simply illustrates how desperate the Republicans are and how poor a hand they have to play.

  • “So, remind us again, how has getting Saddam made us safer?” – lou

    [tongue in cheek]
    Saddam Hussein kept Iraq free of Sunni and Shite religious extremists for decades. Now, the Bush administration, in a war with Sunni extremists and itching to go to war with Shite extremists, has put Saddam on trial, secured a conviction, and is about to execute the only man able to keep the Iraqis a secular nation.

    After six years in office, that’s their great accomplishment. And they want you to vote them two more years of a compliant and submissive Republican Congress.

    Why should America do that?
    [/tongue in cheek]

    Gah!

  • Saddam was captured on December 14, 2003!!!!
    Thats almost Three Years Ago….
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3317429.stm

    (Please note only R. Kelly has waited longer for a verdict – http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur29152.cfm)

    Anyway…. now all of a sudden after a 1 YEAR trial marked by the suspicious deaths of several his defense attorneys and other misfires during the trial (a trial that we have heard little about in the US media) he is going to be sentenced two days before midterms!!!???!!!!???

    This has Rove’s fingerprints all over it.

    If Rove thinks this will have an effect on the election he is sorely mistaken…

    It may even backfire by pointing out what little Saddam had to do with the original intention of the Iraq War which was to prevent future terrorist attacks on US Soil and ONLY point out what an awful dictator he was to competing tribes within his nation….

    I have one question though…

    Will his sentencing occur before or after the obligatory pre-election OSAMA Bin Laden VIDEO tape…….?????

  • Saddam was captured on December 14, 2003!!!!
    Thats almost Three Years Ago….
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3317429.stm

    (Please note only R. Kelly has waited longer for a verdict – http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur29152.cfm)

    Anyway…. now all of a sudden after a 1 YEAR trial marked by the suspicious deaths of several his defense attorneys and other misfires during the trial (a trial that we have heard little about in the US media) he is going to be sentenced two days before midterms!!!???!!!!???

    This has Rove’s fingerprints all over it.

    If Rove thinks this will have an effect on the election he is sorely mistaken…

    It may even backfire by pointing out what little Saddam had to do with the original intention of the Iraq War which was to prevent future terrorist attacks on US Soil and ONLY point out what an awful dictator he was to competing tribes within his nation….

    I have one question though…

    Will his sentencing occur before or after the obligatory pre-election OSAMA Bin Laden VIDEO tape…….?????

  • Yeah, I see this as total backfire, to the point that I really wonder if this ISN’T supposed to help Republicans. Like maybe the Iraqis are trying to screw Bush or something. Because Republicans don’t want to run on Iraq right now and pro-Saddam people are likely to have some big event planned for the occasion that could really look bad. So I’m not so sure this isn’t a big “Up Yours” on the part of the Iraqis.

    Then again, as others have pointed out, Republicans really don’t have the foresight they imagine they do, so maybe they haven’t thought this through all the way either.

  • Anyone who thinks this three-year process just happens to come to its conclusion precisely two days before the midterm elections hasn’t been following the news. Oh, wait a minute! Neither the American public nor the “news media” follow the news, do they? Like the cows in Animal Farm we have no useful memory.

    Rod Stewart sang Every picture tells a story. This picture shows Saddam’s arrest way back in the early days of the “quagmire”. It’s hard to believe it took this long, with this many events and this amount of slaughter, unless you remember Karl Rove and his magical Regal Moron. I’d like to think it’ll blow up in their faces, and/or spread massive mayhem in Iraq, but I guess that’s asking too much. Orwell truly lives.

  • If I was getting really paranoid, I might think that the Saddam speculation is just a headfake by the White House and that their real plan is to nuke Iran on Halloween or thereabouts to really get people spooked (no pun intended).

    Somebody pass me a tinfoil hat………

  • Saddam might be getting convicted, but not for anything regarding WMD, terrorism nor any crimes against US citizens or connections to 9/11. He’s guilty of the same crap against his own citizens that Pinochet, Mobutu, Charles Taylor and other run of the mill dictators have done to their countries. His trial is no victory for Bush.

    If the Bush adminsitration crows about bring Saddam to justice for what he did to his fellow Iraqis, he should be told Darfur is worse than anything Saddam did and Bush has been sitting on his hands about that.

  • Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said “his government will not force militias to disarm until later this year or early next year, despite escalating violence in Baghdad fueled by death squads and religious warfare.” He also criticized the U.S.-military led coalition’s overreliance on force in Iraq, calling it the “wrong approach.” — Think Progress

    And he’s gonna allow Hussein’s sentencing to be scheduled for Nov 5??? I’ll believe it when I see it. Maliki seems to be doing a wonderful balancing act of his own, politically speaking; he’s much less of a puppet than the WH might have hoped. He seems to be the Lieberman of Iraq : ^)

  • So what the hell happened to the October Suprise?

    Was all that “Rove’s October Suprise” last month just a fake, or did the events of this month overshadow his plans?

  • Will the November surpise be a another 9-11? Since September 11, the Bush Administration has repeatedly exploited the threat of terrorism for political ends, from dirty bombs to sleeper cells to electoral politics.

    Shalom,

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    http://drgoldblatt.blogspot.com/
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    Shimkus announced retirement after next term. Why should we believe him?

  • Of course, this “October Surprise” will not work on the American public, because it is bored and tired of Sadaam H. But, it will be used as a reason that the Republicans win in elections due to fraud. The MSM will spout this as a legitimate vote changer.
    Yes, I am that cynical.

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