[Dean's World] Dave Price: Could The NYT Editorial Board Even Find Iraq On A Map?

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Could The NYT Editorial Board Even Find Iraq On A Map?
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1177208793.shtml


   They seem awfully [1]ill-informed.

     The government still depends on the parliamentary votes of Mr.
     Sadrâs party, the largest faction in the ruling Shiite bloc.

   Uh, [2]no they aren't. Al-Hakim's group has always been the biggest.
   See, some of us actually paid attention to the elections, instead of
   just denouncing them as a farce. Sadr's group isn't even the biggest
   subgroup in the United Iraqi Alliance party, which itself [3]shares
   power with other groups in the ruling coalition, and the Sadrists have
   less than a quarter of the total votes in the alliance. You'd think
   with the massive resources at their disposal the NYT could at least
   get the basic facts right.
   Ironically, the editorial repeatedly accuses Maliki of incompetence.
   Also amusing is the first line of the editorial:

     Just when it looked as if the Iraqi government had sunk as low as
     it could go

   Oh, how quickly Saddam Hussein disappeared down the memory hole. I
   seem to recall Iraqi governments doing much, much worse than the
   current one. Maliki seems unlikely to gas the Kurds, build WMD, or
   invade Kuwait or Iran -- but on the other hand, he's also not issuing
   lunatic tirades against George W Bush and that seems to be what it
   takes to get the NYT editorial board on your side.

References

   1. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/opinion/18weds1.html
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Iraqi_Alliance#Split_by_Party
   3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_elections#Political_parties_and_elections