In order to avoid war with Iraq, a proposal has been made that would allow Saddam Hussein to live the rest of his life in exile and thus avoid prosecution for any action he took as leader of Iraq. In exchange, Saddam would have to agree to peacefully step down as the leader of Iraq.

Would I approve or disapprove of this proposal? Yes, I would approve of it.

If the passage above appeared on the op-ed page of a liberal British newspaper or in a left-wing American journal of opinion, right-wing commentators would rail against its author; a "Sontag Award" nomination would follow in short order from Andrew Sullivan.

Well, Andrew, get ready to issue a whole lot of Sontags -- what I quoted above is from a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted January 23 - 25, and 62% of Americans approved of exile for Saddam (scroll down to the tenth question). Many of these people approve of war with Iraq in the abstract and distrust the European approach, as the other poll questions show -- but they'd let the man end his days at a villa to avoid the war the Bushies and their acolytes so obviously long for. I guess there's really not all that much difference between us and those lily-livered Brie eaters across the pond.