What's the easiest way to get around the constitutional provision that puts foreign policy solely under the authority of the President? Cause this guy's a moron. This kind of smash-mouth diplomacy isn't only dangerous- it's completely ineffective. What do they hope to achieve by undermining Maliki? Do they think that the men who will attend this meeting don't already know that Maliki needs help? Do they think that they are helping anything by trying to embarass him in front of his peers? Maybe they think they can bully Maliki into line behind the President, so that he is not made out to be the fool he really is? Whatever twisted their logic- be it 'aggressive diplomacy' or pre-emptive 'Simple George Damage Control'- it is misguided and dangerous, and can only serve to embarass the United States and erode our influence further.

It feels so good to be right, even if it's at the expense of my own President, deserving as he is.

Does anyone wish to dine with President Bush? Anybody? White House switchboard operators are standing by. Don't let our itty bitty little lame duck humiliated nobody eat his dinner on Air Force One all by himself tonight. C'mon, somebody call him.

Honest to Gawd, when I first read this story, the first thing I thought of was a line from the Sinclair Lewis novel "It Can't Happen Here." As the plot unfurls, the American dictator, Buzz Windrip, gets increasingly upset because his snippy diplomatic notes produced snippy responses.

And now client states are slamming the door in the President's face. Priceless!

Much as I love seeing the Usurper treated like the droppy-diapered three-year-old he is, let's not forget he still has his dirty paws on the nuclear button. His most likely response to this kind of dissing is to order an attack on Iran. Then we can all bend over and kiss our asses goodbye.

Mr. Bush appreciates how Nicole Richie feels right about now with Paris and Britney new bestest friends.

Poor Dubya, he can't get a date.

Something about how the rest of the world is always coming to us to get us to solve all of their problems? Hmmmm... this story sure seems like evidence that his claim just might not be the case. What a surprise.

It's funny how "muscular" neoconservatism has managed to humiliate our country. The Iraq war, far from spreading our brand of democracy throughout the Arab Muslim world, has undermined our influence in the Middle East.

By allowing ourselves to become trapped in Iraq, we've destroyed whatever deterrent effect on "Islamofascist" extremism that our exercise of power was intended to have. And removing the counterweight of Saddam Hussein, even in his weakened post-Gulf War condition, has empowered Iran in the region. This week we saw the leader of Iraq enthusiastically embracing that madman Ahmadinejad, which made me a little ill.

Now a leaked memo is all the excuse Maliki needed to kow-tow to al-Sadr, a mere sectarian leader, and snub the world's hyperpower.

The best way for the Bush administration to help shore up Maliki's political support with he folks at home would be to give him an opportunity to gain "street cred" by dissing the Great Satan's leader. Could this be a clever gambit?

Doubtful, as it would require the Bush and his crew to empathize enough with the Iraqis to understand how he is viewed in their eyes. But it must have crossed Maliki's mind, or perhaps whoever it was who leaked that memo.

The memo leak is certainly not a new strategy in the annals of meeting planning, but the White House employed the technique as effectively as its other strategies in Iraq, in this case to give Maliki one more day to end the civil war before the meeting. Actually, Iraq has already passed through the civil war phase of its downward slide into chaos and is a failed state, but why quibble over semantics, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and the millions of refugees who can't even get status as refugees because the Bush administration will not admit there is a problem. The extra day also gives the American press a chance to catch is breath after declaring that the last throes of the insurgency are over, and Iraq is now embroiled in a civil war, a bold declaration that has come approximately two years after the fact. Now that everybody is one the same page, Bush can chart the way forward with both feet still planted firmly in the air.

who cares. Bush set Maliki up as a puppet only to find that neither he nor Malicki had control of the strings, the other players, or the country where this awful play is being staged. Mr. Bush being upstaged by his marinatte is irony at its best. If soldiers wern'y dying because of this gross negligence it would all be laughable.

that poses an interesting question. does AF1 have those "sick-sack" thingys? hmmmmmm

siri@legitgov.org

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