or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
March 19, 2008
No Evidence For Administration's Claim On U.S.-Iraqi Declaration Of Principles
There's been conflict between Congress and the Bush administration in the past several months over the Declaration of Principles Bush and Maliki signed last November. The Declaration of Principles appears to commit the U.S. to defending Iraq from both internal and external threats. Such commitments have previously only been made by treaties, which require Senate approval.
Last Thursday the Politico reported that a "senior administration official" claimed this was all a misunderstanding stemming from an Arabic-to-English translation of the Declaration of Principles. I've written a new piece for Democrats.com examining whether there's any evidence for this. The answer appears to be no.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at March 19, 2008 05:23 PMBush will do whatever he wants is the short of it. I liked the part about protecting Iraq and upholding their constitution (?) LOL. I expect we shall have to attack ourselves in order to keep to the bargin. I arrest myself in the name of the law, come out with your hands up.
Posted by: rob payne at March 19, 2008 06:02 PMWith respect to the translation claim, surely Bush didn't read the Arabic original - so either he (a) signed a document he hadn't read, or (b) he read an English translation. Did he, then, use a separate translation that hasn't been made available? Or was his signing of the document based on a translation that, according to the unnamed official, was sloppy and inaccurate?
Posted by: saurabh at March 19, 2008 06:45 PMWhat? Bush can read??
Posted by: WorstPresidentEver at March 19, 2008 06:56 PMExcellent article, but why do you hate our permanent bases so much that you'd deprive them the security they desperately need? Besides, KBR employees that don't pay social security need employment too. And mercenaries; woe be to them if we ever had to pull up stakes and they had to get real, not-killing-some-bystander jobs.
Tsk.
Posted by: angryman@24:10 at March 19, 2008 07:06 PMi really like the idea that iraqis are writing laws that americans are willing to sign, even more than i like the idea of the iraqi parliament somehow magically closing its eyes and signing whatever paper happens to appear in front of them.
Posted by: hapa at March 19, 2008 08:01 PMYeah, yeah, but won't those Iraqis be surprised when Bush whips out some of those ever-useful signing statements? Why should the fun be limited to just the USA? Bush - Corn holing polities on two continents!
Posted by: JerseyJeffersonian at March 19, 2008 11:32 PM
