One of the great puzzles of American politics is why Jewish voters fail to see their genuine allies among conservatives. President Bush is now besieged by a press that lives in complete denial of the fact that he put a clean end to the Nazi—like regime of Saddam Hussein. Hitler never stood trial, blowing out his brains instead. The Saddam trial is therefore the first time in recorded history that a mass—murdering dictator is put on trial by his own victims. It is a completely unprecedented event.

Only Senator Joseph Lieberman stands out as a brave exception to the moral cowardice of the Democrats. Recent estimates indicate that Saddam murdered not just 300,000 innocents, as previously believed, but more than a million. If that is not a crime against humanity, what is?

Add that to Saddam's military assaults on Iran and Kuwait, for another million unprovoked deaths. Finally, if you aren't feeling sick yet, remember that Saddam's Baath Party had its origins in European fascism of the 1920s and 30s. The Baath Party followed the fascist formula every step of the way.
The Iraqi genocides were therefore not some terrible accident, but a predictable consequence of a conscious policy, from Saddam on down.

How have liberals, especially Jewish liberals, lost their moral bearings so completely as to oppose the overthrow of the unspeakable Saddam?

I don't pretend to know. It could be some strange mixture of personal loyalty to FDR's Democrats and sheer intellectual inertia, a deep aversion to seeing what is plainly in front of our eyes. FDR opposed Hitler in Europe, and liberals can look back to that with a sense of  pride.  But today's Democrats do not possess even a tiny smidgen of the moral clarity it took to defy Hitler, just as the Left failed to expose the horrors of Mao and Pol Pot, and just as it fails today to speak out about Sudan's Islamist genocide over the last twenty years.

In a stunning act of psychic suppression, the Democrats have even forgotten 9/11, after only four years. But we have not.

Establishments die hard. Ideological establishments, like our media, cling to desperately outdated beliefs, long after the world has changed. Liberal Jews seem to be caught up in the daily bath of media tales. It is the bane of actually believing the New York Times, as if it were the word brought down from Mount Sinai.

Yet the conscience of Jewish liberals is bound to become a red—hot question again, as the Saddam trial hits the headlines. Our perfectly objective media will no doubt do everything they can to close our eyes to Saddam's endless murders, just as they covered up the exterminations of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. Oh yes, and Hitler.

The New Media must not let the Old Media cover up the facts.

If Jewish liberals really mean the slogan "Never Forget!" — what can they say when Saddam's victims start to testify to the killings of innocent men, women and babies, will they close their ears to concentrations camps and mass executions? Will they look for some way to blame George Bush?

If so, it will be a tragedy of truly Biblical proportions. It is high time for liberals — Jews and others — to look reality in the face, as Saddam Hussein stands trial before the world.

James Lewis is a frequent contributor.