Couric: Saddam Was Iraq's 'Ultimate Referee'

"Today Show" host Katie Couric apparently just can't resist giving deposed Iraqi mass murderer Saddam Hussein an occasional compliment.

During an interview with Senators Joe Biden and John McCain on Monday, she said that while the Butcher of Baghdad may have been "deplorable," at least he "kept the Sunnis and the Shiites apart and from killing each other."

Actually, Couric's partly right - though she failed to mention how Hussein accomplished his amazing peacekeeping miracle: by exterminating the Shiites who dared to rise up against him, including the father of the Iraqi imam who's currently leading the latest insurgency.

Last year Couric stepped into it during a chat with NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, when she asked if he could confirm reports that Saddam had escaped coalition forces by fleeing "to Tikrit, and then Mosul, and then hopefully to Syria" [our emphasis].

Editor's note: