Adventures In Yiddish

The definition of the Yiddish word chutzpah used be a man being tried for the murder of his parents who begs for the court's leniency because he is an orphan.

Today in Iraq chutzpah was redefined:

Saddam Hussein launched into an extended outburst at his trial Wednesday, alleging he had been beaten and tortured by his Americans captors while in detention after a witness testified that his agents had tortured people by ripping off their skin.

"I want to say here, yes, we have been beaten by the Americans and we have been tortured," Saddam said, before gesturing to his seven co-defendants around him, "one by one."

After sitting quietly through several hours of testimony, Saddam said he'd been beaten "everywhere on my body. The marks are still there."

Oh man! Talk about the very definition of the word!