Billmon: Word Salad

I wrote last night that parts of the draft Iraqi constitution read like complete gibberish. It seems there's a good reason for that: The constitutional deal submitted (kinda, sorta) to Iraq's temporary parliament not only wasn't a deal, it wasn't even a draft. The Washington Post's Ellen Knickmeyer explains:

We're told today there isn't a proper draft put together yet -- that the version as it is now exists in people's heads and in copies annotated with handwritten notes. There are a couple of new drafts floating around today, but I think they may reflect the drafts that various sides are putting forward.

A document that "exists in people's heads" hardly seems like an adequate basis for constitutional deliberation. Even Hammurabi did better than that. So what happened Monday night was simply and completely a dodge to put off new elections and allow Shrub to claim progress in his big Iraq War booster tour. Shocking, isn't it?