Excerpt:
Or what about ''Livin' La Vida Loca''? Or ''Macho Man'' (given Saddam's Village People mustache)? Or--here's one for our Kurdish listeners--''Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.'' Or ''Iraqin' Around the Christmas Tree.'' Or . . .
But, around this point, you can't help wondering, ''Why exactly does Saddam Hussein need a campaign song?'' According to the Times, at his last presidential election seven years ago, the old butcher got 99.89 percent of the votes. As the 0.11 percent foolish enough to write in Pat Buchanan have since been killed, you'd have thought Saddam would do even better this time. But who knows? Perhaps there's a Zogby poll with him plummeting to 99.83 percent. Perhaps Dick Morris has some internal numbers showing Iraqi soccer moms want more spending on education and less on anthrax.
So the guy's out there on the stump pressing the flesh. I mean, as opposed to the flesh he presses with the hot pokers down in the basement. His managers have come up with a snappy campaign slogan: ''Yes, Yes To Our Beloved Leader, Saddam Hussein.'' The agency had toyed with ''Four More Decades,'' ''I'm Pro-Saddam And I Vote,'' ''Guns Don't Kill People. Saddam Kills People,'' ''It's Mourning Again In Halabja,'' ''Ask Yourself Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Four Centuries Ago?'' and ''It's The Dictatorship, Stupid!''
I have to confess to a sneaking admiration for the old mass murderer. What's happening on Tuesday wouldn't pass the smell test in any functioning polity, even New Jersey. Voters will find one question on the ballot--''Do you agree that Saddam Hussein should remain president?"--and will have to tick either "Yes" or "No." They have to write their names on the ballot, and in case they're tempted to put ''John al-Smith'' or ''Jane bin Doe,'' they have to fill them out in the presence of ''officials.'' It's not the kind of election you really need a campaign song for.
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