Special thanks to reader Tung Yin (see also July 30), who has just supplied the perfect defense for my upcoming trial:

"If you can't find the poison gas, Saddam gets a free pass."

With a line like that, it doesn't matter what kind of facts, photos, exhibits, maps of wind currents, eyewitness accounts, or grieving family members the prosecution throws before the jury. All they're going to remember is the line "If you can't find the poison gas, Saddam gets a free pass."

It's the classic California style defense strategy: Let the prosecution bore the jury with evidence, then you dazzle them with poetry.