(news) One of the administration officials said Gonzales also concluded the current president has authority to act against Saddam under the congressional resolution that authorized his father's actions in the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam has not complied with the terms that ended that war, the official said.

I feel confident that there are a number of people who will comment upon the madness of this new development in the Bush administration's policy. As a team player, then, I have decided to seek out ground of my own and work from there. Thus: why is a major news publication, in cooperation with the American government, repeatedly referring to Saddam Hussein by his first name? Iraq does not use Chinese rules for nomenclature. Yao Ming, the 7'6" Chinese basketball player, is called 'Yao' by sportswriters, and that is because his family (or "last") name is 'Yao', and his personal name is Ming. It is widely considered rude in public discourse to refer to individuals by their first name when interpersonal familiarity has not been achieved. Even Yassar Arafat and Ariel Sharon don't cross that line with each other. However, the United States seems very insistent upon having Saddam Hussein known as 'Saddam', not Mr. Hussein, Hussein or even S. Hussein.

What we are seeing, then, is an attempt on the part of the United States government - with which the news media is being largely cooperative - to move Saddam Hussein out of the realm of the 'real' and forcibly transcend him to 'one-name celebrity' status such as that held by Oprah, Sting and Charo. This would, in the long-term, reduce him to a basic signifier rather than a literal fact, allowing actions against him to be divorced from the messy requirements of cause and effect.

When one cross-references this data with the ongoing negotiations between CBS and former President Bill Clinton for Clinton to host a talk show, one becomes truly excited about the 2005 fall season.