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Coddling Dictators
OK everybody, repeat after me:

Saddam baaaad. Ghadafi goooood....

...And that unpleasant business about blowing an American airliner out of the sky? Or that disagreeable incident with the bomb in the Berlin disco? All forgotten and forgiven. Heck, what's a few minor acts of terrorism between friends, anyway.

And the one-party police state? The cult of personality? The torture chambers? The aggression against neighboring countries? Old news. It's time to "move on."...

...Over the next couple of days, it will be facinating to see how quickly the conservative agitprop machine can conform to the new line. While detente with Libya isn't quite as drastic a policy backflip as the Hitler-Stalin pact, it could be a tough mouthful to chew and swallow for an audience that's been conditioned to rank Ghadafi second only to Saddam in the League of Evil Villains, insane Arab dictator division. The White House certainly understands this, which must be why they slotted Bush's announcement into the usual Friday afternoon dead zone....