If this was their October Surprise, then these guys have really lost their touch. With Iraq as an election issue having been totally overwhelmed with stuff that can only remind Americans of how the Republicans have screwed everything up over there, Karl Rove is lucky that this whole Saddam sentencing thing can safely be relegated to somewhere in the "back of the book," maybe even the "Where Are They Now" column.

Before the arrival of coalition forces in Iraq, one of Kurdistan's most respected leaders, Barham Salih, was the target of an assassination attempt by the Ansar al-Islam group. He was saved only by the momentary impulse to duck back through his doorway for a cell phone he had left behind, but several of his entourage were murdered. The killers were apprehended, tried, and sentenced to death. Salih is now the deputy prime minister, but he was then the man responsible for signing death warrants in northern Iraq. He declined to sign the warrants for those who had murdered his friends and nearly taken his own life. At the time, he told me that he hoped the new Iraq would abolish capital punishment "even when we capture Saddam Hussein." Like many leading Kurds, he had been influenced by discussions with Danielle Mitterrand, the widow of former French President François Mitterrand, who was a great friend of Kurdistan as well as a stern foe of capital punishment. The idea was that the new Iraq would begin life without the death penalty. I have had discussions with many Iraqi dissidents who take the same view. Almost every preceding change of regime in the country was marked by the execution of at least some of the previous leadership. Perhaps it might be desirable to break with this depressing tradition. Moreover, now that even the Turks have abolished capital punishment just next door, in order to conform with European Union stipulations, why should Iraq not signal its membership of the community of civilized nations in the same way?

The case for carrying out the sentence of death, or for not protesting if it is carried out, is the following: Saddam Hussein has been tried under Iraqi law as it stood when he was dictator and has been sentenced according to that law. It is not for anyone else to tell Iraqi courts and judges what to do or to suggest retrospective changes in the system. He had the day in court that was denied to his victims, and the sentence should stand, even if the Iraqi parliament should later decide to abolish capital punishment. This might be technically correct, but then so until recently was the "sovereign immunity" defense, which said that those who were recognized heads of state could not be tried under the common law. Partly overturned by the British House of Lords in the case of Augusto Pinochet, and by the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, this doctrine is giving way to the idea of "universal jurisdiction," whereby crimes such as torture and genocide are akin to piracy and indictable and prosecutable in any place where the wanted person may be found. That being the case, the Iraqi courts should act according to a putatively universal standard. This standard might not include such features of the Saddam trial as the recent abrupt replacement of the presiding judge on the grounds that he seemed too soft on the defendant.

The full verdict, a document of several hundred pages, explaining how and why today's judgment was reached was not released. U.S. officials said it should be ready by Thursday. So why issue the verdict today? U.S. court advisors told reporters today it was delayed mainly for technical reasons.

If the president of the United States made a special trip for your campaign, you might come out to say hello.

But when President Bush turned up in Pensacola, Florida, today, Charlie Crist wasn't there.

Crist is the Republican hoping to be Florida's next governor. And the White House sent out schedules indicating Crist would be at a rally to introduce Bush.

Instead, Crist was 600 miles away in Delray Beach, at a restaurant called "Lox Around the Clock." And his absence from the Bush event upset some folks, including Karl Rove, the president's political strategist.

The USS Intrepid, the aircraft carrier that survived World War II bomb and kamikaze attacks, got stuck in the mud in the Hudson River on Monday as tugboats tried to pull it from its berth.

The ship - a huge floating military museum that draws hundreds of thousands of tourists a year - was supposed to be towed across the river to a dry dock in Bayonne, N.J., for a $60 million renovation.

Six tugs pulled with a combined 30,000 horsepower but moved the Intrepid only about 15 feet. Not even an unusually high tide could free the 27,000-ton, 872-foot-long ship from the ooze.

"We had the sun, the moon and the stars in alignment, and it was just a very disappointing day for us," said Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

Whether "robo-calls" are positive or negative, mean-spirited or humorous, thousands of Americans are sick of them, according to campaign organizations that have been fielding complaints over the past two weeks.

An Ohio woman, who did not leave her name, called The Washington Post in tears yesterday, saying she could not keep her phone line open to hospice workers caring for her terminally ill mother because of nonstop political robo-calls.

Pamela Lorenz, a retired nurse in Roseville, Calif., called her own experience "harassment as far as I'm concerned" and said, "If I were voting right now, the opponent who's doing this, he'd be off my list for throwing that much trash."

... Many voters hang up as soon as a robo-call begins - without waiting for the criticisms or the NRCC sign-off at the end - so they think it was placed by the Democratic candidate named at the start, said Sarah Feinberg, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "Our candidates are inundated with phone calls from furious Democrats and independents saying 'I'm outraged and I'm not going to vote for you anymore,' " she said.

Feinberg said some voters have received robo-calls late at night, despite federal rules barring such calls after 9 p.m. NRCC spokesman Carl Forti said his organization ends all calls by 9 nightly.

Democrats also cited Federal Communications Commission guidelines saying the originators of automated calls must identify themselves at the beginning of each call. Republican Party lawyers, however, said the requirement does not apply to political nonprofit organizations. They rebuffed a "cease and desist" letter sent yesterday by the DCCC.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, the DCCC chairman, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), compared the widespread robo-calling to a 2002 Republican effort in New Hampshire to jam Democratic phone lines to prevent the Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort. The Republican National Committee has spent more than $2 million to defend its officials in the case, he said. "Make no mistake, this is a dirty trick, one they've done before, one they've gotten caught on and one they continue to do," Emanuel said.

Tim Daly from Clarendon got a call saying that if he votes Tuesday, he will be arrested. A recording of his voicemail can be found online at: www.webbforsenate.com/media/phone_message.wav

The transcript from his voicemail reads:

"This message is for Timothy Daly. This is the Virginia Elections Commission. We've determined you are registered in New York to vote. Therefore, you will not be allowed to cast your vote on Tuesday. If you do show up, you will be charged criminally."

Daly has been registered to vote in Virginia since 1998, and he has voted for the last several cycles with no problem. He has filed a criminal complaint with the Commonwealth's attorney in Arlington.

Widespread Calls, Allegedly from "Webb Volunteers," Telling Voters that their Polling Location has Changed.

A couple of examples:

Norman Cox has been registered to vote in the same location in Arlington since 1972. Someone from a 406 number (in Montana) called to tell him that his polling place has changed. [Note: The Webb Campaign is NOT making any such phone calls.] Cox said he believed that he was being mislead and the caller hung up.

Peter Baumann in Cape Charles, VA (North Hampton) got a similar call from a "Webb volunteer" saying his polling location had changed. He said: No, I'm a poll worker and I know where I vote. The girl--who was calling from California - hung up.

The Secretary of the State Board of Elections Jean Jensen has logged dozens of similar calls, finding heavy trends in Accomack County (middle peninsula) and Essex County (outer peninsula) [as reported by the counties' registrars].

Fliers in Buckingham County Say "SKIP THIS ELECTION" (paid for by the RNC) have caused many in the African American community to call the Board of Elections to see if the election is still on. The full tag line says: "SKIP THIS ELECTION... (and then in smaller print): Don't Let the Tax and Spend Liberals Win."

Voter Machine Problems:

a. On many ballots in heavily Democratic neighborhoods, Jim's name is cut off. The ballots say: "James H. (Jim)" with no Webb. b. New reports that ballots in Essex County have Jim's name split on 2 pages. The "James H (Jim)" on one page, "Webb" on the next. c. Reports of voting machines in Isle of White that do not provide a clear image of the ballot, making voting a challenge.

Voting issues need to be a foremost priority in the next Congress. This is unconscionable.

I was handing out leaflets for John Hall yesterday at a grocery store. There were two tables, a democratic one and a Republican one.

When I was handing out palm cards, several people said to me something like, "I WAS going to vote for John Hall, until I got all those phone calls. I got seven or eight, right at dinner time."

The guy from the Republican table, who was a local district leader - friendly and chatty - actually came over to me and said, "You know, most of those are coming from Sue's office, but don't tell anybody."

I don't know how high his connections are to the Kelly campaign, but that's the information he volunteered.

I think it's useful to take a step back and examine, in the simplest terms, what the Republicans are doing here: they are attempting to sabotage the American democratic process because it's inconvenient for their candidates.

Of course these robo-calls are only one manifestation of a consistent theme, but when I approach the calls without the cynicism of a political news junkie, I find them breathtakingly despicable. The people behind this aren't schoolyard bullies, or even college kids. These are adults with years of political experience and a comprehensive understanding of what exactly their acts amount to. The NRCC simply does not believe that Americans should be able to make informed choices about their representatives in the voting booth. They are perfectly willing to dismantle the democratic process, which cannot function properly when voters are harassed (or even worse, harassed under false pretenses). I think it's fair to say that their behavior in this instance is "profoundly immoral and malevolent," which is how the Oxford English Dictionary describes "evil." Despite our desensitization to these types of transgressions, we cannot afford to take them lightly.

Santorum Poll Released by Indicted Republican Operative

Early this morning, Keystone Politics editors received and released a poll by McCulloch Research and Polling showing that Rick Santorum was within 4 points of retaining his Senate seat. Further research into McCulloch Research and Polling shows that Rod McCulloch, principal at the firm, has been indicted in voter fraud and forgery in Illinois.