one step forward, six steps back

I suppose I should probably hold off and see what actually happens with the Iraqi constitution before posting anything, but rumor has it that the Bush administration, in the interest of moving things along, has acquiesced and given its OK to a plan that would see Iraq becoming not the secular democracy we’d all been promissed, but a theocratic state governed by Islamic law. Here’s a clip from the UK paper the Guardian:

The United States has eased its opposition to an Islamic Iraqi state to help clinch a deal on a draft constitution before tonight’s deadline.

American diplomats backed religious conservatives who threatened to torpedo talks over the shape of the new Iraq unless Islam was a primary source of law. Secular and liberal groups were dismayed at the move, branding it a betrayal of Washington’s promise to advocate equal rights in a free and tolerant society.

So, if and when Cindy Sheehan ever gets to meet with the president and ask him face-to-face what “noble cause” it was that her son died for, Bush can look her square in the eye and say, “the establishment of a Islamic theocratic state.”

Fucking pathetic.

It just keeps getting worse and worse.

While we’re on the subject of the colossal boondoggle that is Iraq, there are two other things you might want to look at. The first is this video of Seymour Hersh on the Daily Show with John Stewart (courtesy of our friends at One Good Move), and the second is Frank Rich’s most recent column in the New York Times, entitled “The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan.” Here’s a clip:

Cindy Sheehan couldn’t have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States” by going fishing. On this Aug. 6 the president was no less determined to shrug off bad news. Though 14 marine reservists had been killed days earlier by a roadside bomb in Haditha, his national radio address that morning made no mention of Iraq. Once again Mr. Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn’t see Ms. Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn’t foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.

When these setbacks happen in Iraq itself, the administration punts. But when they happen at home, there’s a game plan. Once Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, the Swift Boating began. Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war. The Swift Boating is especially vicious if the critic has more battle scars than a president who connived to serve stateside and a vice president who had “other priorities” during Vietnam…