Saddam in Custody, US Less Safe Than Ever

Among the silliest of charges leveled at Democratic presidential nominee apparent Howard Dean is that he somehow mispoke when he remarked that the capture of former CIA errand boy Saddam Hussein–nothing more than the latest chapter of a lengthy labor-management dispute if you think about it–hasn’t made Americans any safer, whether in Iraq from local resistants or here in the U.S., from terrorists.

With news of U.S. troops continuing to come under heavy fire in Iraq, it’s time for former contenders like Dick Gephardt and John Kerry–both worthy men who would have made fine opponents to Generalissimo El Busho had they not already lost–to stop criticizing Dean for speaking something that’s so plainly true. Dean’s plainspokenness, after all, is what has brought him so far. It’s also time they drop out of the race and endorse Dean.