by JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, January 3, 2007 3:13 P.M. EST

Saddam as Victim
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders notes a rather outrageous quote from a self-styled human-rights advocate, objecting to Saddam Hussein's execution:

Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program, said in a press statement, "The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders. History will judge these actions harshly."

What nonsense. The measure of a government's commitment should be in how it treats its citizens. Hussein had countless Iraqis killed without a trial. He ordered the death of an 11-year-old boy because he thought it was "the right of the head of state." History will focus on his misdeeds, not on the timely execution of a guilty despot.

Saunders is obviously right: It is perverse to consider the execution of a mass murderer as worse than the murder of children.

But she doesn't quite capture the full perversity of Dicker's statement, "The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders." By this reasoning, hanging a thief or a jaywalker would be less bad than hanging a mass murderer.

And suppose we apply the Dicker principle to the previous regime in Baghdad. How did it treat Iraq's worst offenders, namely Saddam Hussein his sons and assorted hangers-on? It provided them with nearly limitless wealth and power. By Dicker's logic, this is close to ideal: The more brutal a dictatorship and the more lavishly its rulers live, the stronger its commitment to human rights. What a monstrous moral inversion.

Playing Both Sides
"Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq," reports the New York Sun:

The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.

An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force--the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads--is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.

Last year Iraqi liberal Mithal al-Alusi told journalist Heather Robinson that he believed Tehran was playing both sides in Iraq. This reminds us of one of the more nonsensical claims that used to be made in defense of Saddam Hussein: that he would never work with al Qaeda because he was secular whereas they were fundamentalist. By this reasoning, surely Shiite Iran would not work with Sunni al Qaeda in Iraq (or, as it is known in the press, al Qaeda Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq in Iraq Which Has Nothing to Do With al Qaeda). In the real world, ad hoc alliances of ideologically disparate nations or groups are quite common.

Offensive Maybe but Charismatic?
"Several Democratic strategists last week urged [Hillary] Clinton to unleash a 'charisma offensive' in the new year to counter the saturated media coverage that has helped propel [Barack] Obama up the polls," reports London's Sunday Times.

We'd throw out a bon mot, but we're not sure we could outdo blogger Tom Elia:

I think this is the kind of rhetorical Mumbo Jumbo that people detest about politics--but if such an offensive is adopted on behalf of Sen. Clinton and it actually works, I might be persuaded into hiring the folks responsible for launching it, and have them attempt to convince people that I am six-foot-three, have thick hair, possess a 97 mile-per-hour fastball with movement, and often speak extemporaneously in cleverly-rhymed iambic pentameter.

Wish me luck.

Good luck, Tom.

Fear of a Vote
Massachusetts voters may get to decide on the future of same-sex marriage after all. Yesterday the state Legislature voted 62-134 (only one-fourth of votes are required) to advance a constitutional amendment that would reverse a Supreme Judicial Court ruling imposing such marriages on the state. The measure needs the same approval from the Legislature's next session to get to the 2008 ballot.

Proponents of same-sex marriage had urged the Legislature not to vote on the measure, notwithstanding a ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court that it was obliged to do so. Although the court held that it did not have the authority to enforce its own ruling, "But the court's criticism of the legislature appeared to be enough to make some lawmakers decide to allow a vote . . ., even legislators who support same-sex marriage and hope the amendment will ultimately be defeated":

"Certainly, the court ruling changed the atmosphere this week, in that legislators took a second look at their job description, at their oath of office, at a higher obligation actually, to uphold the constitution," said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which sponsored the amendment.

[Gay-rights activist Arline] Isaacson said the court's decision "really tipped the scales against us."

An editorial in yesterday's Boston Globe urged the Legislature not to vote:

There has been much gnashing of teeth over whether the voters will be heard if the Legislature declines to vote on the amendment today. By now, legislators have debated the question in multiple constitutional conventions in 2004, 2005, and 2006. It is hard to say that the matter has not been aired. Last September, legislators took a final vote on a more lenient amendment--which denied marriage but explicitly established civil unions as an alternative--and defeated it, 157 to 39. That cleared the way for today's harsher version of the ban, which needs only 25 percent of the convention to advance.

The voters also have been heard at the polls in two separate statewide elections, where not one of the proponents of gay marriage was defeated and their margin in the Legislature increased. Governor-elect Deval Patrick was the only major-party candidate to steadfastly support gay marriage in the November election, and he won in a landslide.

Patrick also lobbied the Legislature not to vote on the measure.

Now, there is something very odd about this whole episode. The Globe and others seem to be against democracy rather than just for same-sex marriage. Why not urge the Legislature to do its duty and vote, and to vote the amendment down? Or why not welcome the opportunity to persuade voters to approve same-sex marriage by rejecting the amendment?

We wondered if the Globe had ever urged the Legislature to legalize same-sex marriage before the Supreme Judicial Court mandated it. The answer appears to be no, and in fact the Globe's view seems to be that this actually is the purview of the courts rather than the Legislature. In a July 8, 2003, editorial titled "For Gay Marriage," the paper argued that that wasn't the place:

Opponents say the Legislature should decide all issues dealing with marriage licenses. But the court is being asked for its opinion on a constitutional matter of fundamental rights--its proper purview--and it should deliver such an opinion.

Gay-rights activists are fond of likening their cause to the civil rights movement. But although civil-rights activists won many of their victories through litigation, perhaps the most important one was a legislative action, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Voters in dozens of states have passed ballot initiatives designed to prevent same-sex marriage, and antigay bigotry is not the only motivating force. The resistance in Massachusetts to putting same-sex marriage to any sort of democratic test only reinforces the perception that its proponents have contempt for the consent of the governed.

That's Not the Sort of Thing You Forget
"Justice Appointed by Ford Remembers the Late President"--headline, ABCNews.com, Jan. 2

They Still Blow Up When You Step on Them
"U.S. Mines Still Not Safe Enough, Experts Say"--headline, MSNBC.com, Jan. 2

Very Cold, 100% Chance of Darkness
"Scientist Works to Predict Space Weather"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 2

This Just In
"Binge Drinking Rampant Among College Students"--headline, HealthDay.com, Jan. 2

News You Can Use

• "Programmers to Blame for Hard-to-Use Software"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 2
  
  
• "In Kidnapping, Finesse Works Best"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 1

Bottom Stories of the Day

• "Roofer Moves From Toronto to Indy"--headline, Indianapolis Star, Jan. 2
  
  
• "Unidentified Goat Found"--headline, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 2
  
  
• "Straw Goat Survives Christmas Unharmed"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 2
  
  
• "Doherty and Moss 'Not Married' "--headline, Courier-Mail (Queensland, Australia), Jan. 3

Soup-erior Court
"A French court has ruled that an organisation with far-right links can continue offering pork soup to the homeless, rejecting police complaints that the food distribution was racist," Reuters reports:

Police banned the soup kitchen last month, arguing that the handouts discriminated against Jews and Muslims who do not eat pork on religious grounds.

The administrative court said the distribution was "clearly discriminatory," but could not be stopped because the organisers offered to feed anyone who asked for help. . . .

The food handouts are organised by a nationalist group called Solidarity of the French (SDF). It says its "pig soup," which uses pork fat for stock, is country fare much loved by French traditionalists.

It does sound as though the SDF is doing this just to be provocative, which is pretty obnoxious, but banning the soup is pretty obnoxious too, as is characterizing an insult to Jews or Muslims as "racism," seeing as how neither group is a race.

Which just goes to show, French people are obnoxious.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• George W. Bush: What Congress can do for America.
• Shawn Macomber (from The American Spectator): John Edwards goes barnstorming and really steps in it.
• John Miller: A Washington-area library tosses out the classics.