They're made for each other

BULLY BOY PRESS &   CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

STAR-CROSSED LOVERS BULLY BOY BUSH AND KILLER BARRY O MET UP IN TEXAS YESTERDAY TO PULL 'EM OUT AND SEE WHO'S WAS BIGGER ONLY TO DISCOVER THEY'RE BOTH AT 47%.

THAT'S NOT GOOD NEWS FOR EITHER BUT NEITHER ACCOMPLISHED MUCH.  THEY'RE BOTH WAR CRIMINALS WHO BETRAYED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND SPAT AND SHAT ON THE CONSTITUTION.

REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, KILLER BARRY O RESPONDED, "I NEVER FEEL MORE GIRLISH THAN WHEN BULLY BOY BUSH FIXES ME WITH THAT STARE, YOU KNOW THE ONE, THE ONE THAT GETS MY SHORTS ALL WET."

WHITE HOUSE PLUS SIZE MODEL JAY CARNEY SPENT MOST OF THE MORNING DENYING THAT BULLY BOY BUSH AND KILLER BARRY O ARE SET TO STAR IN A REMAKE OF TWO OF A KIND.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:


Iraq is in crisis mode.  No one's helped by false 'facts.'  This, from World Bulletin, is wrong, "Thousands of Sunnis have been protesting since December, venting frustrations building up since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the empowerment of Iraq's Shi'ite majority through the ballot box."  Protests have been going on since December.  If you leave out Moqtada's followers who have participated from time to time, you can paint it as just Sunni.  But that's not the problem. You can't pin down a problem if you can't be honest.

"The empowerment of Iraq's Shi'ite majority through the ballot box"?  What have you been smoking? Quil Lawrence and all the other liars told us about that, remember?  Told us about it before the ballots were counted.  But, the ballots did get counted.  And the 2010 election didn't support the premise one bit.

Who came in first?  Not Nouri's State of Law -- a Shi'ite collection.  Iraqiya came in first.  It's often wrongly identified as Sunni by the press.  Ayad Allawi, the head of Iraqiya, is Shi'ite.  Iraqiya surprised the know-nothing press by besting Nouri's State of Law.

They misread 2009 elections and were sure they knew what was going to happen in 2010.  Which is how you got, the day after the election, Quil Lawrence on NPR raving about how Nouri's State of Law won by a large measure.  Didn't happen.

In 2009, one of the elements in the data appeared to be that voters were rejecting the sectarian identity.  That wouldn't have been a surprise.  The sectarian identity was seen by many as something imposed on Iraqis by the US after the start of the war.  Even those who want to quibble over that can generally agree that the US fostered that sectarian identity and encouraged it.

The 2010 elections repeated the pattern.  Iraqis were seeking a national identity (as they had prior to the start of the illegal war).  There are numerous reasons for this -- most of which we've repeatedly gone into while the know-nothing press has refused to do their job -- but the point is that Iraqiya won.
SOme in the press want to knock the win by insisting it wasn't big enough.  If you win a track race by a-half-a-second, you won that race.  If you win a US Senate race by one vote, you won that race.

If the vote was close, you might ask for a recount.  Which Nouri did, stomping his feet and whining as is usually the case for the overgrown baby.

But even after the recounts, Iraqiya won.  It was a new Iraq, that's what it presented.  Not an occupied Iraq, not an Iraq controlled by the fundamentalist thugs.  It was an Iraq made up of Sunnis and Shi'ites and anyone else who wanted to join, it was men and women and the women weren't decoration. It's slogan could have been "We are today's Iraq."  And that's what the voters embraced.

So, no, 2010 was not about "the empowerment of Iraq's Shi'ite majority through the ballot box."

The votes went with Iraqiya. Here's what happened -- and it matters and the people have said so, they said so this year, they said so in 2012 and they said so in 2011.  At some damn point, you either admit you don't care about what you're writing or you start listening to what the people are actually saying.

Per the Constitution, Iraqiya had first shot at the post of Prime Minister.  How it works in Iraq, confusing to many Americans, the prime minister-designate is decided by who has the most seats in the Parliament.  The prime minister-designate is a post that lasts no longer than 30 days.

During those 30 days, the designate has to be able to form a Cabinet.  Failure to do so within thirty days means someone else is named prime minister-designate by the president of Iraq. This is a full Cabinet -- another element that's too hard for the press to grasp.  If it was a partial or almost Cabinet there wouldn't be a 30 day deadline.  The 30 day deadline is to prove, as one of the writers of the Constitution now in the US explained to me, that you can govern by consensus, you can build consensus.  So you nominate people for your Cabinet and the Parliament approves of these people.  And then you move from prime minister-designate to prime minister.  Or, if you fail to build consensus, if Parliament shoots down a nominee and you don't manage to pull together the Cabinet in 30 days, someone else is named prime minister-designate.

Now Barack Obama couldn't support democracy.  That's bad enough but he and his staff were so stupid that they didn't even realize how to rig the process.

Bully Boy Bush wanted Nouri in 2006 (he rejected Ibrahim al-Jaffari -- some pin that decision on Condi Rice, doesn't matter Bush was the ultimate vote on that).  In 2010, A Problem From Hell Samantha Power insisted that the US had to stay with Nouri.  This was based in part on the fact that the idiot is f**ked-up beyond repair and also because she's a liar who believes in manipulation and not honesty.  (Is it any wonder that she'd end up with Cass I-Love-Propaganda Sunstein?) Her failings aren't the issue once Barack adopts her position.  Like Bush, he's ultimately responsible.

I'm not endorsing ignoring the will of the people, but if you're brazen enough to do that, have the damn sense to do it in a way that doesn't make the people feel cheated.

What does that mean?  After 2010 elections, the US government spread a lot of cash around Iraq and made a lot of verbal promises to get The Erbil Agreement.

That was always unnecessary.  They still could have rigged it and could have done so in a way that still followed the country's Constitution.  Have President Jalal Talabani name Ayad Allawi prime minister-designate.  Use the same cash and the same verbal promises to ensure that he didn't get a full Cabinet.  Parliament rejected one or two nominees and the 30 days had expired.  Then Jalal could have named Nouri al-Maliki to be prime minister-designate.

That would have followed the Constitution, it would have appeared to honor the will of the people.  It certainly wouldn't have created the hostilities that Barack's 'three-dimensional chess' did.

They wanted to rig the process and, suffering from the Freudian compulsion of a crook to confess, apparently they wanted it known.

So when Nouri refused to allow the process to move forward -- let's explain that.  In January 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as US President.  Following the end of the recounts, April 2010, it was time for a prime minister-designate to be named, for members of Parliament to be sworn in and hold sessions.  Nouri refused.  It was as if Bully Boy Bush announced January 1, 2009, "I'm not leaving the White House."  And Barack's White House backed up Nouri.

They begged the press -- which was eager to go along -- to downplay what was happening.  Some in the press were appealed to under the pretense of, "This is such a thorny issue, we really need to think about how explosive this could be."  So reality was downplayed.  Explosive?  Maybe it would have been.  But you can't downplay an explosion.  You may be able to push it back but it will go off.

We called it a "political stalemate" here and were the first.  After three months it began to be a popular term.  For over eight months, Nouri refused to step down.  That takes us to November.  The US has been bribing and promising the political blocs all along.  Nouri is the White House's choice.  That's become obvious to everyone involved in Iraq. 

It was also obvious to many in the press leading to humiliating moments for Barack like in  when the Guardian's editorial board noted in August, "These elections were hailed prematurely by Mr Obama as a success, but everything that has happened since has surely doused that optimism in a cold shower of reality."


While he was taking his licks on the international stage, he had US officials telling the leaders of the Iraqi political blocs, as the US brokered a contract known as The Eribl Agreement, "This has lasted eight months already, Nouri could hold out for another eight months.  Do the right thing here, be the bigger person, put Iraq first.  It really doesn't matter who has 'prime minister.' It's going to have to be a power-sharing government because State of Law didn't win.  So just give him the post of prime minister and we'll write up in this contract and we'll put what you want in the contract to and it will be a legally binding contract with the full backing of the US government."

Before it was signed, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Australia November 8, 2010 and stated:


Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: Probably over the course of the last eight months, we've had many indications that they were close to an agreement, they were on the brink of government formation, they had worked out their power-sharing arrangements only not to see that come to fruition. But it is fair to say that we have been consistently urging the Iraqis to have an inclusive government that reflects the interests and needs of the various segments of the population, the there had to be legitimate power-sharing amongst different groups and individuals. And that is what we hope at the end of this process [. . .] will be the result of all of their negotiation.


That same day, Richard Spencer (Telegraph of London) reported Nouri's spokesperson "claimed an agreement has been struck for him to remain in office."  November 9th talks went on:


Today, meetings continued. Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) reminds, "Leading up to Monday's meeting, officials had said they were close to completing an agreement, but remarks made by a number of the leaders indicated that they have yet to address key sticking points that remain unresolved ahead of this week's parliament session." And Raheem Salman and Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) point out, "If they fail to strike a deal, the stalemate could drag on for months."  Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reports the US is pressuring Kurds to step aside regarding the presidency so that someone from Iraqiya can be president -- Fadel names US Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain (in person in Baghdad) and US President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden -- and that Nouri "is trying to garner the backing he needs [from Iraqi politicians] to keep his post without ceding any of his power.  Maliki emerged as the likeliest candidate for the top job in the new government when he secured the support of the Sadrists, a populist Shiite political movement opposed to the U.S. presence here." BBC News reports that Allawi and Tareq al-Hashemi did not show for today's meet up (al-Hashemi is also a member of Iraqiya as well as Iraq's Sunni Vice President) and that "[a]nother issue still to be resolved is whether parliament will meet on Thursday as previously announced." Sammy Ketz (AFP) reports that Iraq's Shi'ite Vice President, Adel Abdel Mehdi, walked out of today's meeting. Alsumaria TV reports that MP Saifya Al Suhail spoke out about the absence of women present in the deal making and that she stated, "A democratic Iraq cannot be built without women contribution to the political decision." Mazin Yahya (AP) adds, "Producing a deal by Thursday's scheduled parliamentary session will be difficult and while legislators have watched other deadlines come and go, there is a marked sense of urgency about meeting this court-appointed deadline to hold the session."  So, reports indicate, day two was actually less productive than day one since all players were not present and no big announcement was made.  When this was originally planned, it was thought it would be three days with main principles participating for the first two days only -- during which time, it was promoted, all the big points would be ironed out.  That does not appear to have happened.  Especially when Alsumaria TV is reporting that Iraqiya stated today "that the possibility of withdrawing is still open".


I believe  Leila Fadel (Washington Post) was the first to report what the rumors said the make up of the government would be: "Under the deal reached Wednesday, the parliament is expected to appoint a speaker from Iraqiya, then name the current Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, as president. He, in turn, will name Maliki as prime minister. Maliki will then have to put together a cabinet that a simple majority in Iraq's parliament will have to approve."  November 11, 2010, Parliament met:
 

 

Martin Chulov (Guardian) reports one hiccup in the process today involved Ayad Allawi who US President Barack Obama phoned asking/pleading that he accept the deal because "his rejection of post would be a vote of no confidence". Ben Lando, Sam Dagher and Margaret Coker (Wall St. Journal) confirm the phone call via two sources and state Allawi will take the post -- newly created -- of chair of the National Council On Higher Policy: "Mr. Obama, in his phone call to Mr. Allawi on Thursday, promised to throw U.S. weight behind the process and guarantee that the council would retain meaningful and legal power, according to the two officials with knowledge of the phone call."  So all is well and good and . . . Ooops!!!! Lando, Dagher and Coker file an update, Iraqiya wasn't happy and walked out of the session.  Prashant Rao (AFP) reports that "a dispute erupted in the Council of Representatives chamber when the mostly Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc argued that the agreement they had signed on to was not being honoured, prompting the bloc's MPs to storm out. [. . .] Specifically, Iraqiya had called for three of their lawmakers, barred for their alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's Baath party, to be reinstated before voting for a president." 

 Barack was deeply involved.  Don't pretend otherwise now.  And don't pretend that Sunnis are frustrated by "the empowerment of Iraq's Shi'ite majority through the ballot box." That is an utter lie.  And it does not one damn thing to explain what's happening on the ground today.  



RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"April's already seen over 400 dead from violence i..."
"How they re-set the clock for Nouri"
"On walking"
"Not interested in the web page that auto plays screaming from the Boston bombings"
"The Great Recession"
"women charged with practicing 'sorcery'"
"Look who is celebrating together"
"Sexism and The Simpsons"
"Michael Franti and other perverts"
"Body of Proof"
"The twin bullies"
"The tyrants"
"THIS JUST IN! THEY CALL IT LOVE!"
"When Bully Met Barry . . ."