Demonized Dictator?

The latest from the Political Grapevine:

Demonized Dictator?

Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark who recently announced he's joining Saddam Hussein's legal team is now explaining his decision, insisting that Americans have demonized Saddam, and "one of the greatest barriers to peace is demonization."

Clark specifically condemns images of Saddam from prison, saying, "The savage presentation of [Saddam], disheveled, with his mouth open, people probing in his mouth, the dehumanization ... this is hardly the road to peace if you want respect for human dignity."

Clark adds, "In presence [Saddam] is reserved, quiet, thoughtful dignified, you might say, in the old-fashioned sense."

Number Not So High?

The head of Iraqi intelligence who said the number of insurgents in Iraq is 200,000, making "the resistance ... bigger than the U.S. military [there]" is apparently now backing off his number. General Mohammad Abdullah Shah-wani, in an interview with the leading Arab newspaper Al-Shark Al-Awsat now says there are only 20 to 30-thousand armed men operating in Iraq.

So then where did the 200,000 number come from? Well, Shah-wani says, that included the number of people offering "moral support" to insurgents.

Prepare for War?

North Korea has ordered its citizens to prepare for a lengthy war with the United States, saying, "The [U.S.] has cooked up suspicion over our nuclear program and is escalating ... international pressure to strangle and destroy our republic. If this tactic doesn't work, it plots to use this problem as an excuse for armed invasion."

In a 33-page manual called "War Guidelines," obtained by a South Korean newspaper, the North Korean government urges military forces to build restaurants, water wells, restrooms and air purifiers in underground bunkers.

As for citizens, the manual tells them to make sure they take all portraits, plaster busts and bronze statues of leader Kim Jong-Il underground.

Americans' Attitude?

Film director Oliver Stone insists his historical epic movie "Alexander," which raked in less than a quarter of its $150 million price tag flopped in the U.S. because of a "raging fundamentalism in morality."

Stone says the movie's name-sake character depicted as bisexual in the film scared many Americans... who, he says, thought "We're not going to see a film about a military leader that has got something wrong with him."

Meanwhile, the film's producer, Moritz Borman, says he wanted to create a "dumbed down ... lighter, shorter, popcorn-ier, simple version for American audiences that takes out the homosexuality and a more sophisticated one for the rest of the world." But Stone, he says, would have refused.

— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report