Ford and Hussein: Send in the subs for law and order

Back in the day (early 1950s), Andy Griffith recorded a humorous monologue called "What It Was Was Football," which I heard often on radio, not having discretionary funds to buy his album:

. . . just as fast as one of 'em would get hurt, they'd take him off and run another one on!! (31 Dec. 2006 http://www.swaggersays.com/Default.asp?Page=36)

Seeing these words in print reminds me how Andy's North Carolina inflection is essential to the wonderful LOL effect. Even now I catch the bemused excitement of his accelerando, which I would've spelled, ". . . and run another 'n' on!!"

This week, the world buries Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein, one gentleman of ordinary people and one horrible tyrant. What catches my attention is not the mere coincidence of interring former heads of state but rather the difference between their immediate contexts. Simply put,

• Gerald Ford's death was private, natural after a long life, and memorialized in phrases such as "nice guy," "decent," "likable," "a rock," "comfortable in who he was," "healer" following "our long national nightmare," and--ironically, coming from the mouth of the current Vice-President, the words of T.S. Eliot--"still point of the turning world."

• Saddam Hussein's death was public (even though the scruples of the American press and public have postponed our seeing video of the actual hanging), unnatural (unless we think of violent death as the natural end for an extremely violent man), and memorialized in his executioners' taunts with the name of another violent leader, Muqtada al-Sadr.

So we remember one who died believing that the people—the nation, even specifically the House of Representatives—are more important than any individual leader. The other died as a neck-snapped egocentric tyrant at the hands of men who, in a cloud of their "Sadr" chants, substituted another violent leader-man for the one they deposed.

I am revolted at Saddam's atrocities. If capital punishment be ever justifiable, "Saddam Hussein, come on down!" But our satisfaction at his comeuppance needs at least a little counter-context:

• When we feared the Soviets, we "run them Mujahadeen on";
  
• when we feared the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War (one million dead), we "run them Iraqis on";
  
• when we executed Saddam and "minoritized" the Sunnis, we "run them Mahdi militia guys on."

It’s beyond the reach of humor, I’m afraid, with stakes so high, with tragedy so rampant. But it’s not beyond the reach of far more careful talk and thought than we have seen this past year.

Happy New Year, all!