Bush and Maliki sittin’ in a tree…

The story burgeons with the soft temper of a sophomoric drama – Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki snubs ribald George in a planned gathering in Jordan after notes to the teacher are read aloud to the class – “Malaki...why that stooge couldn’t stop a corpse from breathing..” or perhaps not exactly, but media coverage gave that vibe, at least initially, until the tearful union played out with an unsmiling, stiff Malaki shaking hands with the U.S. President and both proclaiming that, although, beneath the “erroneous” pretense of mutual revulsion they’ve got a hummdinger of a drawdown paradigm for Iraq – Get the official Iraqi Forces ready to assume command!

Okay, I get confused with the bait and switch and switch and bait and club and taser offerings of Iraq-based exit strategies, but hasn’t the “train the Iraqi forces schtick” been the the sacrament du jour for the past three years? Playing coy before the Baker Report, sure, that’s fine, let Bush use his underdog savvy to pull himself from the compromised low-ground again, pander a novel solution post Baker – something with a Paul McCartney ring of “Say, Say, Say” but George will be the one going in his own direction it seems…