Let the gloating begin...

...But is it too much to ask that the gloating make sense? No-one will miss Uday and Qusay, the geniuses who did such a brilliant job of implementing the Iraqi defence strategy in the early days of the Iraq war. Needless to say, their deaths are taken as vindication of all things Bush on Opinionjournal.com. Based on their previous twistings of any event in that manner, we predict they will soon present a new non-revisionist view of World War II, in which the decisive moment was when Hitler committed suicide in the bunker. Two extracts from their gloat-fest merit particular attention:

we can expect this [Saddam's sons] to silence the pack of [critics] about some twaddle involving Niger, a West African nation that will now return to well-deserved obscurity.

Doesn't Niger have enough problems without being unloaded on by a bunch of reactionaries who are essentially mad at the country for not selling uranium to Saddam?

Then they pull a conciliatory quote from Saif al-eslam Gadhafi, son of the Libyan dictator, about how he wants friendship with the US, and add:

Smart boy. He knows what happens to dictators' sons who do seek confrontation with America.

As is so often the case with these guys, all one can do is recite some facts. Back in the days when Libya was seeking confrontation with the US, the US bombed the Gadhafi compound, killing Gadhafi's (adopted) daughter. Was that the end of the matter? The generally accepted motivation for the bombing of Pan Am 103 by Libyan intelligence agents was revenge for the Gadhafi daughter's death. Killing the offspring of dictators makes for good Bring 'Em On chest-thumping. But let's wait for the final bill before declaring Mission Accomplished.

UPDATE: The spin-point has clearly gone out instructing the use of any opportunity to bash the now out-of-favour CIA. From Wednesday's WSJ editorial: The two previous claims of their or Saddam's demise came from CIA sources who have proven to be unreliable.