A Dignified Death for a Dictator?

Of the 6 billion people on this Earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the preeminent monster on the planet.

That is how Charles Krauthammer starts his misguided column today on the death of Saddam Hussein. Charles goes on to fret that Saddam's death was simply, well....undignified:

For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy but a crime...
....The world has now seen the smuggled video of the shouting and taunting that turned Saddam Hussein into the most dignified figure in the room -- another remarkable achievement in burnishing the image of the most evil man of his time.

SADDAM HUSSEIN A VICTIM??? Read your first paragraph again, buddy. This guy instigated two wars that killed hundreds of thousands, slaughtered hundreds of thousands more within his country for simply being of another race/religious sect, and heavily financed Palestinian terrorism with his oversized $25,000- checks provided to survivors (notice how with the lack of a monetary incentive -and a wall - suicide bombings within Israel are down sharply?). And you feel he is now a victim because he was mocked in the moments before his necked was mercifully snapped? My God, the qualifications for victimhood seem to have dropped a tad, no?

Krauthammer used to have one of the sharpest minds in the print media; seems as if he's sipped from the anti-American liberal Kool-Aid again. May I remind him of two other inglorious deaths of well known dictators?

Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceauşescu, backed by the former Soviet Union, terrorized his people, using secret police to "disappear" tens of thousands, and forced the country into virtual starvation throughout the '80's (he ordered the export of all agriculture to pay off national debt). He was executed after a quick trial and left lying in a dirty ditch...photos here.

And yet - there are no statues of him in Romania! No public squares proclaiming his greatness! If Krauthammer was right, wouldn't Ceaosescu's image be "burinished"?

And let's look at the undignified end of Italian Fascist Benito Mussolini :

...the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were found hung upside down on meat hooks [nice pic here] in Piazzale Loreto (Milan), along with those of other fascists, to show the population the dictator was dead. This was both to discourage any fascists to continue the fight and an act of revenge for the hanging of many partisans in the same place by Axis authorities. The corpse of the deposed leader became subject to ridicule and abuse by many who felt oppressed by the former dictator's policies....

And yet - did this end endear him to the Italian people? Er, no - his name is still spat out like a bad olive up and down the boot of the Italy. Did his well-deserved end make him a Krauthammer victim?

Fact is, evil dies horribly in most cases (Yassar Arafat the unfortunate exception; the smelly terrorist was coddled to the end and never held responsible for his crimes against both Israel and the Palestinian people; just the way the Left likes it). A dignified death is a sacrifice you make when your hands are rich with the blood of others - even Tony Soprano understands that (he has mentioned many times how he expects to "retire" from the "business"); I am shocked that Krauthammer does not seem to grasp it.

Sneered at while you twist at the end of a rope, gasping for breath through a shattered neck? A just death for someone like Saddam, the personification of evil walking upon the earth....