Maliki echoes White House line in address..MSNBC

[madfloridian]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14045710/

"Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Wednesday his country's future depended on continued US commitment, telling a joint session of Congress that the "fate of our country and yours is tied", and that it is "your duty and our duty to defeat this terror".

Even so, some of Mr Maliki's lines echoed key administration themes. The White House acknowledged having conversations about the speech with the Iraqi leader.

Where US president George W. Bush has hailed liberty as "God's gift to humanity", Mr Maliki said, "I believe these human rights are not an artifact construct reserved for the few. They are the divine entitlement for all."

And from Robert Dreyfuss:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/26/maliki_dead_man_walking.php

"The address by Iraq’s puppet prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday was a surreal and other-worldly exercise in the make-believe.

As civil war rages in Iraq, swamping even its capital in an orgy of violence, Maliki strolled into the House chamber, led by an “escort committee” of House and Senate members that resembled pall-bearers more than an honor guard. As they waited for Maliki to enter the room, the assembled dignitaries seemed shrouded in a funereal silence. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert clumsily mispronounced his name, introducing Maliki as “Malocky.” But when he finally started to speak, it was malarkey.

For members in the hall, the elephant in the room was Iraq’s civil war and the fact that 127,000 U.S. troops are caught in the middle of it. In fact, that civil war threatens to unleash a political civil war at home, as Americans increasingly fail to see a light at the end of the dark Iraqi tunnel. More and more, Democrats (with crucial exceptions) are starting to speak out, demanding answers from the Bush administration. So far, there are none forthcoming.

Maliki’s message was a simple one, and he delivered while standing in front of his puppet master, the scowling Dick Cheney. Did Maliki headline the sectarian bloodletting and ethnic cleansing in Iraq, the death squads and militias? No. Did Maliki present a plan for securing Iraq’s capital? No. Instead, he stuck to the Republican Party’s 2006 electoral talking points: that Iraq is the central front in the so-called Global War on Terrorism. He cited 9/11, a crime perpetrated by what he called “impostors of Islam,” and he portrayed the violence in Iraq as the direct continuation of America’s effort against Al Qaeda"

[MADem]

1. Karen Hughes likely wrote that tripe for him NT

[Sparkly]

5. My guess was Karl Rove

but it had all the familiar markings of a typical BushCo speech, no doubt about it.

[MADem]

7. Karen was in town....

And she's on the payroll as Miss BushCo Middle East...which is pretty amusing, since she knows absolutely zippo about the region.

[AlamoDemoc]

2. I am very much ashamed of what our DNC leadership is doing

We are now telling this man from occupied Iraq that he is wrong on saying what he has said on Lebanon > The man preside over 100 dead civilians a day in Iraq. He knows about death civilians when he sees it. Gee, our Democrats in both houses are forgetting this man is losing people on daily basis, and he is frank when he speaks of death and destruction.

[madfloridian]

3. Ok, now you are freaking me out.

That man from Iraq is from all I have read spouting the Bush line. Our Democrats know that. Bush now has his new Iraqi leader as someone who is against what Bush and the US agree upon...that Israel must be supported and terrorists must be condemned.

Our Democrats are pointing that out.

And BTW include all our Democrats in your condemnation, they are all speaking against Maliki.

[AlamoDemoc]

4. What he said before he landed in Washington is what got him in trouble

Our leadership are using what he said when he was in Iraq, and not what he said when he came to Washington.

[madfloridian]

6. The articles refer to the speech here.

.

[AlamoDemoc]

8. what is your point?