Iraq: A "Permanent Democratic State" Except for "Permanent" "Democratic" and "State"

Shorter Verbatim Austin Bay: “This week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki introduced Iraq’s new, permanent democratic government.” I dunno, I might want to wait until, say, the government had actually finished filling out its cabinet until I called it “permanent.”

What makes it even funnier is that this assertion comes in the midst of a column starting with the question: “Does a billionaire historian exist, a bucks-up wiseman who is prepared to underwrite the Astonishing News Network? There’s more than a market niche for this network — in an era of instant analysis and insistent gossip, the context, depth and sobriety of ANN is a necessity.” What the breathless propaganda of Austin Bay or his Trainwreck Media comrades has to do with “context” “depth” or “sobriety” I can’t tell you. But if we can have a news network to provide “context,” the first thing I would suggest would be some choice excerpts from this, which might teach some people that an entity with as little coercive capacity as the Iraqi government is not in any meaningful sense a “state” at all. And perhaps the network’s sober analysis could also teach some of the war’s few remaining cheerleaders that holding an election and having a piece of paper theoretically limiting the powers of government does not a constitutional democracy make, unless you think that Zimbabwe qualifies. There has been no establishment of a democratic government in Iraq, let alone a permanent one.