Bad Day for Bush

Do you think President Bush has one those Countdown Calendars hanging up in his office? After a day like yesterday, you have to wonder.

He flies to Jordan to meet with the King and Iraqi PM Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. But both of them bow out of a long-planned meeting Wednesday evening. The Shiite militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Brigade, and his allies had vowed to withdraw from the coalition government if Maliki met with Bush.

The White House did get Maliki and Bush ‘together’ for a press conference this morning, but check out this picture (in today’s NYT) – it took a wide-angle shot to get them in the same frame! And Maliki couldn’t wait to get out of there. As reported in the NYT

Still, tensions seemed to bubble just under the surface. The two leaders barely looked at one another during the news conference. And when Mr. Bush, at one point, asked the prime minister if he wanted to continue taking questions from reporters, the prime minister swiveled his head toward the president and shot Mr. Bush an incredulous look.

"We said six questions, now this is the seventh – this is the eighth – eight questions," Mr. Maliki said.”

Even less encouraging, Iraqi Sunni leaders asked the King of Jordan to represent their interests because they didn’t trust their own PM, the Shiite Maliki to do so! This lack of trust reflects the real disaster that Iraq has become. The government has taken sides with the Shiite militias against the Sunnis - civil war.