saddam, my close personal friend

yesterday on the radio i heard some beeb reporter blathering on about the latest details from the saddam trial.

"saddam this and saddam that and saddam blah blah blah"

it struck me : everyone in the whole world is on a first name basis with the former dictator of iraq.

you never hear "earlier this morning, george vetoed a bill passed by congress" or "later that week, tony gave george a nice backrub" or even "the results came back negative for colin's colonoscopy".

why is it that everyone calls saddam "saddam" instead of "mister hussein?" even chuck and jean-b get the formality of a last-name identification. is the whole world really on a first-name basis with saddam?

guess so.