What are we to make of Canada’s official reticence in opinionating about Saddam Hussein’s imminent neck-stretch?
GWB likes it. He’s using it to firm up the well-documented flaccid Republican vote in tomorrow’s midterm elections, and it just may work for him. US Democrats are predictably not NOT liking it, stressing that Hussein’s execution is probably the correct thing to do but will not make the US safer, nor should Republicans be rewarded for it.
Tony Blair does not like it, because England opposes capital punishment (or at least he personally does) and, more than likely, because GWB does like it and now people are asking him more pesky questions about that whole business.
And Canada? Nothing from the Prime Minister that I can find, and Peter MacKay prefers to reserve judgment on Saddam’s punishment until the automatic appeals process has run its course. I smell a lack of preparation. I smell a delay in order to ask the Prime Minister what MacKay’s opinion is.
But surely, this question is not hard to answer. There are any number of ways to spin support for Saddam’s guilt, and regret over the death sentence. And that would be fitting with Canada’s official positions on these two things. I could probably write something up for MacKay by the end of the day. Really, they could just crib from Blair if they’re desperate.
Are we to understand by this delay that Canada is reconsidering our position on capital punishment?