Today’s Jewcy

Saddam hangs: Well, I suppose Bush ought to be given credit for this, but his party’s manipulation of any good news out of Iraq as electoral entitlement is venal and sleazy. Not a few Democrats were responsible for greenlighting this war – however much they may regret it now – to end a 3-decade reign of fascism. Don’t they deserve a handy “November” surprise? Not if they let this man continue to be their spokesperson: “’I think it’s a great verdict — I mean, Saddam Hussein is a war criminal and he’s getting what he deserves,’ Howard Dean, the Democratic national chairman, said on ‘This Week” on ABC. “But I don’t think it has any impact on the safety of America.’” I don’t think the safety of American has any impact on Iraqi jurisprudence. [NYT]

Kazakh consciousness-raising: The best thing to happen to this oversized Soviet satellite was an orthodox Jew not afraid to wrestle naked: “Here's what the National Conference on Soviet Jewry has to say about the country: ‘Anti-Semitism is not prevalent in Kazakhstan and rare incidents are reported in the press. None have been reported in the last two years.’ And, for the record, there is no such event as ‘The Running of the Jew’ in Kazakhstan.” [Slate]

MoDo needs the money, ok? Times culture reporter Lola Ogunnaike gets a reprimand for appearing on The View and writing a Rolling Stone cover story. Maureen Dowd goes on Bill Maher, The Daily Show and Colbert and writes a Rolling Stone cover story on her last two TV hosts and she gets… not a scintilla more talented. [Page Six]

Israel more corrupt this years: “Israel, along with Taiwan, received a score of 5.9 [10 is nice; 0 is naughty, naughty] on the CPI scale and was ranked 34 in the world out of 163 countries included in the yearly survey. In 2005 Israel was ranked six places higher.” [J-Post]

Gore Vidal, we hardly cared about ye: The aristocratic populist may have been the epicene Zelig of postwar America but he’s become a monument of self-obsession: “Did you know that Gore Vidal was responsible for the moon landing? Neither did I, until I read in ‘Point to Point Navigation’ (Doubleday, 277 pages, $26) — Mr. Vidal's haughty, shoddy new memoir — how he watched Neil Armstrong's descent ‘in a mood for boasting.’ After the election of 1960, he explains, John F. Kennedy "asked a number of us to write him what should be the principal goals of his administration: the exploration of space, I declared." Thus, he delicately implies, the idea traveled from his pen, via the Oval Office, to the brains of 10,000 NASA engineers and behold — a giant leap for mankind.” [NY Sun]