It's A Civil War...Stupid!

IRAQI PM SNUBS BUSH; TEETERS ON CIVIL WAR; POSSIBILITY OF COUP REARS HEAD

The editorial in today's Wall Street Journal regarding President Bush's now ill-fated meeting with Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki is much of what you would expect from the business-friendly rag. The two are there to "show" the terrorists and the region they share a common goal and his lack of realism in terms of Iraq point to a gallant effort to reaffirm the American public and the soldiers that he, himself, believe in this misadventure. The Yale cheerleader apparently can't put down his pom-poms.

The WSJ did make a poignant and snide remark by calling NBC News and the Los Angeles Times "wannabe Walter Cronkites" by beginning to refer to the war in Iraq as, indeed, a civil war.

NBC, in fact, led by the self-appointed neo-Edward R. Murrow, Keith Olbermann seems to more likely to be the culprit of such self-aggrandizing. Aside, from the basic and intuitive penchant for calling attention to yourself in Hollywood, what exactly is news organizations suppose to do in this situation? The war in Iraq has reached the standard of Civil War and may have even reached that lowpoint months ago. NBC News and The L.A. Times can't be expected to ignore this fact.

Inevitably, the use of the word "civil war" will become ubiquitous. With news that al-Maliki publicly snubbed the president today whether he was angered by the leak of a White House memo that severely questioned his ability to act as PM or the catch-22 of dealing with President Bush or risk losing the support of Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr put him in a no-win situation. Either way, tonight, the chances of the worst happening in Iraq for the U.S.--a coup--went up significantly.