CNN reported yesterdaythat President Bush had been "upset" after watching the video of Saddam Hussein's execution, particularly at the taunting of Hussein moments before he was hanged.
I have to admit to having been a bit skeptical of the news account, which seemed to leave a lot of questions unanswered, such as why this was only now being reported, and who were the unnamed officials? More than that, it seemed a bit unlike W, cowboy president that he is, to get upset over a little, old-fashioned hangin'with a little old-fashioned tauntin' thrown in.
After all, wasn't it Bush himself who mocked convicted killer Karla Faye Tucker, when she appealed for clemency before then Gov. Bush had her executed in Texas?
Then again, maybe it was the apparent lack of due process in Hussein's trial that bothered him. But as Sister Helen Prejean has noted, Bush was never a stickler over due process when he presided over the executions in Texas of more than 150 people. He restricted the standard for clemency so severely that no petitioner could qualify, Sister Prejean wrote.
Well, maybe the President simply underwent a major change in his personal outlook yesterday morning, perhaps as he was going over his speech calling for the surge in our troops in Iraq. I've tried to imagine the conversation that led to the report by the WH officials to CNN:
Bush, sitting at his computer in the Oval Office, as Tony Snow wanders in. Bush is hunched over and appears to have been weeping. His eyes are red.
Snow: Are you all right, Mr. President?
W: Yeah, I'm okay. I was just settin here watchin this YouTube thing--couldn't figure out how to get it goin till just now--and I saw the hangin video of Saddam for the first time. Kinda upset me.
Snow: Weren't you supposed to be reading over your speech for tonight?
W: Geez Tony, I was just takin a break.
Snow: I'm sorry you had to see that, Mr. President. Was it really that upsetting to you?
W: Didn't like the way they kept mockin him, chantin Muqtada, Muqtada, and all that. Didn't seem right.
Snow: (pause) You know, Mr. President, this is a side of you I don't think the American people really know that much about. Would you mind if I mention this to CNN?
W: (his voice breaking) You do what you gotta do, Tony.
Snow: (a sympathetic tear welling in his eye) Thank you, Mr. President. Are you going to be all right?
W: I'll be okay. Just give me some time. I'll get back to that speech. (they hug).
Well, maybe it didn't go down quite that way.