Hugh Hewitt has a suggestion for President Bush, on the issue of Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe arresting and jailing a New York Times reporter without cause, an update on Teddy Roosevelt’s “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!”

(I note that the Times journalist, Barry Bearik, is a British citizen (scratch that, he’s an American; I misread the statement in the Times; another British citizen was also detained.) Perhaps if the President or the State Department find that rhetoric too bellicose, a certain Republican candidate might find the topic worth mentioning. Somebody ought to play bad cop to the diplomats’ good cop.

The New York Times endorsed McCain, presumably much to his detriment. But McCain’s the kind of guy who would let bygones be bygones, help the Times get their correspondent out of lockup, and let Mugabe know that he shouldn’t count on life getting easier on January 20, 2009.