Question #1: What do Saddam Hussein and Cindy Sheehan have in common?


Answer: A hunger strike!


Question #2: Why?


Answer for Saddam:: Alerting people to the evils of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that dethroned Saddam. Answer for Cindy: The same.


Question #3: Who can last longer, Saddam or Cindy?


Answer: That’s easy–Saddam’s hunger strike lasted for exactly one meal. He skipped lunch. Cindy has promised two full months of nothing but water. Here’s what she wrote on Michael Moore’s blog:


“My fast will begin on 7/04 and end on the last day of Camp Casey: 09/02.”


Yup, Cindy’s gonna do a repeat of that camp-out in front of George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, just like last summer–only this time around betcha Maureen Dowd doesn’t devote a whole column to Cindy’s “moral authority.”


Cindy’s fast–which you can join, too!–is organized by Code Pink, those wonderful ladies who stand outside the Walter Reade Army hospital in Washington and taunt the wounded. Here’s the news report from Reuters, dated Monday:


“About 150 protesters sat in front of the White House on Monday to savor their last meal before starting a hunger strike that some said will continue until American troops return from Iraq.


“The demonstration marking the Independence Day holiday was organized by CodePink, a women’s anti-war group that called on volunteers to abstain from eating for 24 hours from midnight on Monday…


“[Code Pink spokeswoman Meredith] Dearborn said 2,700 other activists nationwide, including actors Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, would work as a relay team passing the fast daily from one to another.”


Yes, you read that right–a “hunger strike” that lasts exactly one day. That scarcely beats Saddam’s record.


The only exceptions: Cindy, Dick Gregory (who will fast for anything), and a self-described “actress” named Diane Wilson whose last film acting stint was in 1982 (the question isn’t whether she’s on a hunger strike but whether she’s still alive).


Indeed, the hardest thing about Code Pink’s Hunger Strike Lite was probably gagging down that “last meal” (from which Sarandon and Penn were conspicuously absent):


“The demonstrators crouched in the muggy evening next to a piece of pink plastic, spread down the road as a table and table-cloth in one. It was covered with wilted pink sunflowers and plates of vegetarian curry, white rice, and beans.”


I’d go on a hunger strike, too, if I had to squat on a filthy D.C. sidewalk over a plate of veggie curry cooked by Code Pink.