Vitello-Making History, The Victor's Way

[Vitruvius]

The cell phone salesman looked up from his brown bag lunch, which he was eating in his kiosk at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington Station yesterday. "They arrested him? Really? Wow. I didn't know," he said. <SNIP> Joe Lieberman, who has a certain earnest goofiness in common with many 13-year-olds, called immediately for the death penalty for Hussein. <SNIP>

Yesterday was for the victors, and victors get to write the history of their wars. No American could say it didn't feel good. And most people you talked to had little more than that to say.<SNIP>

And then, the symbolic imagery that is Hussein seemed to flicker: The kids returned to playing games. The shoppers melted into the thin crowds. <SNIP> The cell phone salesman returned to worrying. "I was here 'til 11 last night and got back to work at 9," said Newman, by way of explaining how he missed the news about Hussein, and also by way of telling how hard it is to make a living selling things these days. "Business is so-so. It was a little better yesterday. But today, it's pathetic." <SNIP> Then, he excused himself to attend to shoppers. <SNIP>

In his address to the nation yesterday afternoon, President George W. Bush <SNIP> said nothing, about the weapons of mass destruction Hussein allegedly kept hidden in his country, ready to sell at any time to terrorists, which Bush had said was the reason we launched this war. From his speech yesterday, a person would think Bush launched the war to save the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, whom we supported for many years with arms and cash and political recognition when he was the enemy of our enemy, Iran.

Saddam Hussein no doubt will be comfortable during the time he is in our custody. He was, after all, our client in the Middle East for many years. Maybe, during interrogations, he will renew his old contacts in the CIA, the ones from the good old days when he was our friend.

More at http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-livit153585179dec15,0,5078510.column?coll=ny-news-columnists