posted May 31, 2006 12:11 PM              

By Sidney Blumenthal

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Photo by Faleh Kheiber/Reuters

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad May, 22, 2006.

When new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unveiled his government last week, five months after his country's elections, and was unable to appoint ministers of defense and interior, President Bush hailed it as a "turning point." And that was just one month after Maliki's mentor, former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari, to whom he had been loyal deputy, installed in the position through the support of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was forced to relinquish his office through U.S. pressure.

Bush has been proclaiming Iraq at a turning point for years. "Turning point" is a frequent and recurring talking point, often taken up by the full chorus of the president ("We've reached another great turning point," Nov. 6, 2003; "A turning point will come in less than two weeks," June 18, 2004), vice president ("I think about when we look back and get some historical perspective on this period, I'll believe that the period we were in through 2005 was, in fact, a turning point," Feb. 7, 2006), secretary of state and secretary of defense, and ringing down the echo chamber.

This latest "turning point" reveals an Iraqi state without a social contract, a government without a center, a prime minister without power and an American president without a strategy.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/05/25/bush_iraq/index_np.html

posted May 31, 2006 12:36 PM              

I also doubt he gets people to write his speeches.

posted May 31, 2006 01:32 PM            

It's the content within a speech or article which give rise to questions of one's intellectual capacity..or lack thereof; not the delivery.