UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

You know the opposition is out of ideas when they can't even answer a simple question for fear it will bash through their ideology like a baseball through a plate glass window.

I just spent a few minutes trying to get resident rodentbrain MosesKnows to answer the following simple query:

Jesus Claus: MosesKnows, Does the US support Iraq's democratically elected leader?

Now, over the last few weeks, this has become a tricky question to answer. MK has been a full-throated Iraqi-ish patriot, clanging his gong and proclaiming the wonderfulness of Iraqi democrary. Isn't it grand, Moses oozes, how the Iraqis voted for their own government! What a triumph for peeance and freeanc, Moses burbled. Oh, for shame, loathsome liberals, shame on you for shitting all over this magnificent new democracy! Eh....not so much:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 29 — Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq vigorously asserted his right to stay in office on Wednesday and warned the Americans against interfering in the country's political process.
...

The prime minister made his remarks in an hourlong interview at his home, a Saddam Hussein-era palace with an artificial lake at the heart of the fortified Green Zone. He spoke in a languorous manner, relaxing in a black pinstripe suit in a dim ground-floor office lined with Arabic books like the multivolume "World of Civilizations."

"There was a stand from both the American government and President Bush to promote a democratic policy and protect its interests," he said, sipping from a cup of boiled water mixed with saffron. "But now there's concern among the Iraqi people that the democratic process is being threatened."

"The source of this is that some American figures have made statements that interfere with the results of the democratic process," he added. "These reservations began when the biggest bloc in Parliament chose its candidate for prime minister."

Mr. Jaafari is at the center of the deadlock in the talks over forming a new government, with the main Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular blocs in the 275-member Parliament staunchly opposing the Shiite bloc's nomination of Mr. Jaafari for prime minister.

Senior Shiite politicians said Tuesday that the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had weighed in over the weekend, telling the leader of the Shiite bloc that President Bush did not want Mr. Jaafari as prime minister. That was the first time the Americans had openly expressed a preference for the post, the politicians said, and it showed the Bush administration's acute impatience with the political logjam.

Wow. The Bush administration, undermining democracy? Say it ain't so, Moses!

JC