De mortuis nil nisi bonum

The old axiom that one should never speak ill of the dead has been sorely tested by obituarists over the holiday season. (Oh, sure, James Brown was given a fine sendoff, and so for the most part was the largely forgotten Charlie Drake, but it's the "bad" guys who are the most interesting). Not surprisingly, nobody had much positive to say about Saddam, notwithstanding the fact that at the time of many of his worst atrocities, he was effectively a client of the United States as he fought against the Khomeinist regime in Iran. It's ironic that he has been bundled to the gallows after a show trial, right about the time when the US is realising that having a secularist strongman in power in Baghdad might not be the worst possible outcome.

Most intriguing of all is the treatment of the "accidental President", Gerald Ford. Official America has gone into a period of mourning that is set to last almost as long as Ford's presidency, but obituarists from both right and left have been much less charitable. Many have praised the "healing" that Ford fostered after the Watergate scandal. However, there have been severe criticisms of his decision to pardon his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for his role in Watergate, and equally harsh words for his policy ineptitude, most notably in foreign affairs.

One of the most scathing attacks has come from the reliably splenetic (but always principled) Christopher Hitchens on Slate. As well as condemning the Nixon pardon, Hitchens cites Ford's malign impact on the course of events in Russia, Iraq and elsewhere. It's a damn good read, all the more interesting because I'm not at all sure that Hitchens actually cares about Ford one way or the other. The real object of his contempt is the man he sees as the architect of all of Ford's bad decisions, Henry Kissinger. Hitchens has written vitriolically about Kissinger for many years. You could almost get the impression that he's getting all of the bile out of the way so that he can avoid speaking too much ill when Kissinger passes on. When that happens, though, I'd bet that Hitchens and a lot of other people won't be able to hold back.