DER FUHRER WAS KIND! DER FUHRER WAS GOOD! MANY TIMES HE WOULD SAY TO ME, "FRANZ -- OWWW!" Remember when conservatives argued that Saddam Hussein was so bad he had to be toppled by U.S. military invasion? Today another tyrant has passed, and the same people are blubbering over his coffin.

After overthrowing the elected government of Chile*, Augusto Pinochet spent years killing, torturing, and locking up thousands of his fellow citizens. And, oh yeah, he probably sponsored assassination on American soil.

But conservatives love that he was pro-capitalism, which excuses any number of dead, mangled bodies.

There is one, faint sign among their obsequies that, at some unconscious level, they may recognize the absurdity of their position: they're trying to offload it onto liberals. The boys at National Review says that when Castro dies, liberals will mourn just as we do, I bet I bet. This sort of equivalence is easier to get away with when the event used for comparison hasn't happened yet, though others like Terrestrial Musings, the Classical Values guy, Blogs for Bush etc. opt for a more general liberals-love-Castro slander.

I imagine the more religious among them expect to meet Pinochet in the afterlife. My, what a reunion that will be.

*UPDATE. I meant Chile, I just wrote Argentina.