Last night Saddam hanged.

He was afraid.

He was quiet.

The vast majority of Iraqis danced in the streets, shot weapons into the air and otherwise celebrated the death of a tyrannt.

The left is taking pains to point out that Iraq is still a violent, chaotic place--as if the incessant repetition of this point of view could possibly be escaped.

The Political Animal went a little farther, mischaracterizing the religious implications of Saddam's execution to advance their agenda of American defeat.

The tribunal...had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam's hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday -- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.

The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a "sacrifice" for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public.

Ah liberals! Never missing an opportunity to mislead.

Eid al-Adha is always on the same date--the 10th day of Dhul Hijja on the Islamic calendar. The fact that there are sometimes two dates for the same holiday refers not to differences in ritual by Sunni and Shia, but differences in geographic location. The visibility of the moon's cresent is different depending where you are on the globe, this for this year, the festival occurs (on the Gregorian calendar) on December 31 and January 10 depending on where you are.

Not surprisingly, you can't expect liberals to actually try to understand how the sacrifice of Ismail (Ishmael) is perceived by Muslims (whether Shia or Sunni). The sacrifice traditionally made at this festival represents the sheep found in the thicket, or God's mercy to Ibrahim (Abraham) after he had proved to Allah that his love for God exceeded his love for all other things, including the love of his son.

If Saddam was representative of the sacrifice of Eid al-Adha, it was symbolic of the mercy of Allah--an entirely appropriate metaphor (Only Christians perceive the sacrifice as a harbinger of the Messiah's atonement).

The true sacrifice of self to the will of Allah is the real point of the festival and the Hajj itself, whose end the festival marks.