The Kiss of Death

The Bushies' fave for Iraqi president turned down the offer:

"This position is an honorary position, and the Iraqi people need someone in this office who has the most public support," Mr. Pachachi said.

The news media had portrayed him in the last several days as receiving great support from the Americans, he said, and that ruined his credibility among the people of Iraq. As a result, he added, he felt he might be viewed as illegitimate by the Iraqi people if he were to take office.

"The fact that I was portrayed as having been nominated by the Americans made me look less patriotic than the others," he said.

Being appointed as the American favorite would also probably reduce his life expectancy to time served. And you've got to think that Dick and Don's repellent adventure is truly and irrevocably a failure when pro-American Iraqis recognize that being pro-American is unpatriotic.

Since they've now dissolved the US-appointed puppet government (the IGC), it seems as though these Iraqi politicians aren't going to wait for a June 30 handover of fake sovereignty; they're going to demand actual sovereignty right now. If both the new Prime Minister Iyad Alawi and new President Ghazi al-Yawar demand publicly that US forces leave Iraq within a month, how will the Bushies respond?