Saddam's Execution

Josh Marshall has made the developing Saddam Execution story one of his hobbyhorses, and he's riding it hard:

Saddam prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon, who pleaded with the members of the execution team taunting Saddam at the execution, yesterday recanted his claim that Iraqi National Security Advisor al Rubaie was one of the two governmental officials videotaping the execution with his cell phone.

Today he's saying that there actually weren't any people in the execution chamber taunting Saddam and hailing Moktada al-Sadr. The taunts, he now says, came from outside the execution chamber.

Must be fun to be him right now.

And yesterday's reports that a guard had been arrested over the video tape? Maliki advisor Sami al-Askari tells Reuters, no, didn't happen.

Talking Points Memo is his outfit, and he rigorously follows the subjects he adopts. On the subject of Hussein's execution there were shenanigans on many levels.

It boggles the mind when you contemplate the levels on which this screw-up operates. Managing the event of Saddam's death was a simple, small problem. It was the exceedingly rare sort of problem that you can literally put in a box - the scope of the event limited to a single room. It should have been such a powerful symbol for the country. Instead it was ruined... an opportunity ruined. Not that it would have been enough anyway, but every little bit helps. It's just unreal.