So it seems the Iraqi constitution says the Iraqi parliamentary would need to approve the new ‘US troops in Iraq forever’ deal by a two-thirds margin. And since the idea of a permanent US occupation is really unpopular in Iraq, that seems really unlikely.
On the other hand, apparently we’re going to try to do it extra-constitutionally over here too. So do we really think we’ll be more punctilious over there than we are here?
Finally Republicans have a Dem in legal trouble who comes with a comic story to boot.
Unfortunately he lost in the primary.
Still, it’s pretty funny.
On the ground in New Hampshire, from the Concord Monitor:
In front of the inn, two well-dressed men wore masks and held up signs meant to embarrass Giuliani for his close connection to Bernie Kerik, former New York City police commissioner. . . .
A man wearing a Giuliani mask has shown up to several Giuliani events in the state holding a sign that reads, “Free Bernie.” Today, he held a “Best Friends Forever” sign and stood next to a man in an improvised mask that resembled Kerik’s face.
Steve Clemons: Everyone in the reality-based world agrees that Hamas has to be a party to peace talks.
Okay, I’ve been thinking about Huckabee mainly for how he could upset the apple cart for the major candidates. But we’re closing in on the point where he’s no longer a surging second-tier player. Pulling into second behind Rudy in Florida? That’s a ten point jump in a month. That’s for real.
And Fred down to fifth in Florida? Think we’re at turn out the lights time.
This morning, in response to questions from TPM Election Central, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign issued a somewhat hedged statement opposing permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.
The campaign has now followed that up with a new statement offering much more definitive opposition to a permanent U.S. military presence.
We’re still tracking down positions from other candidates. More soon.
Late Update: Sen. Hillary Clinton has sent a letter to the White House outlining her opposition to permanent U.S. bases in Iraq and saying they would “damage U.S. interests.” As we reported yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd is also opposed. We’ll have a statement from former Sen. John Edwards’ campaign shortly.
Later Update: And John Edwards weighs in against a “Korea-style” occupation of Iraq.
Some interesting but in many ways not that surprising results in the new Pew Survey on Iraq. Across the board there’s been a substantial change for the positive in how Americans see the military situation in the country. But on the key question of should we stay or go, the numbers have barely budged. See the details here.
Hmmm. According to Greg Sargent’s new exclusive at Election Central, this isn’t the first time that Mitt Romney’s given the thumbs down to putting a Muslim in a Romney cabinet. I’m not sure having a no-Muslims in the cabinet policy is going to hurt Romney a lot in the GOP primaries. What’s equally interesting though is his new or rather his original explanation.
As you know, yesterday a Muslim businessman named Mansoor Ijaz wrote a column in the Christian Science Monitor in which he claimed that Romney had told him that he wouldn’t appoint a Muslim to his cabinet because there aren’t enough Muslims in the US to merit a cabinet post — sort of a cartoonish caricature of interest group liberalism.
Well, Greg followed up with Ijaz today. Despite Romney’s denials, Ijaz stuck by his story. And he further said that he’d come to ask Romney the question because of what he’d heard from two Nevada Republicans. According to Ijaz, a former state finance director of the Nevada GOP, Irma Aguirre, and the acting state finance chair, George Harris, had been at another fundraiser when Harris asked Romney whether he’d appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. Romney said he didn’t think he would. But this time too few Muslims wasn’t his rationale. Aguirre remembers Romney saying, “They’re radical. There’s no talking to them. There’s no negotiating with them.”
In other words, on the first pass, it was they’re all crazy radicals and terrorists. It was this answer that prompted Ijaz to ask his question when he gave the quotas answer.
Greg contacted Aguirre and Harris, both of whom confirmed what Ijaz told him about the question that got things rolling.
So it would seem that Romney managed to give two distinct statements, both of which are pretty offensive and he then fibbed about having said either.
Read Greg’s whole report here.
We’re still waiting for comment from the Romney campaign.
From the AP …
A lawsuit against government contractor Blackwater Worldwide accuses its bodyguards of ignoring a direct order and abandoning their post shortly before taking part in a shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians.
Filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, the complaint also accuses North Carolina-based Blackwater of failing to give drug tests to its guards in Baghdad â even though an estimated one in four of them was using steroids or other “judgment altering substances.”