Jumpin’ Jehosaphat! Even Drudge is pissed today. Just below that image, Drudge puts this headline: UP A PENNY PER GALLON — A DAY. That invasion has surely improved our oil supply. Even in Iraq, despite its vast oil reserves, “lines for subsidized cheap gas stretch for miles every day in Baghdad.” (Seattle Times)
Below that, in 64-pt. type, Drudge screams:


IRAQ CONSTITUTION DRAFT SAYS LAWS MUST CONFORM TO ISLAM


Give Drudge his due for his blunt headline. As veteran journalist Doug Ireland wrote yesterday:

“If the Bush administration brokered a deal in Occupied Iraq to enshrine Islamic law as the guiding principle of the new Iraqi Constitution, you’d think it would be headline news in the U.S. media, wouldn’t you? Well, that’s what has happened — yet you can search the Sunday papers in vain to find this sell-out to the Islamists clearly portrayed — or, in some cases, even mentioned.”


Ireland berates the NYT for its “soporific” Sunday headline — “Iraqi Talks Move Ahead on Some Issues” — and the WaPo for its “snooze of a headline on its Sunday story: ‘Kurds Fault U.S. on Iraqi Charter’.” Ireland castigates the WaPo for not quoting a single a Sunni leader.


I checked the headlines this afternoon after the breaking news of a deal that leaves out the Sunnis. The NYT? “Iraqis Submit Constitution Draft, but Key Issues Remain.” The WaPo: “Iraq Parliament Delays Final Constitution Vote.” (The WaPo did quote a Sunni leader today.)


So, the invasions’ practical objective — better access to huge oil reserves — has netted U.S. citizens nada but crippling prices at gas stations. And those idealistic objectives of spreading democracy and the lip-speak about women’s rights? Stomped over by the jackboots of the Bushites in a mad rush to cover up their monstrous failures by forcing a hasty, phony constitution.


In sum, both our practical and our idealistic objectives are failures. Which means that the whole thing is a fucking failure. But hark! Reuel Gerecht, a former CIA analyst, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that we need to be patient about the constitution crises and the oppression of women. BELOW:

The quote below is from the Christian Broadcasting Network News.

Hey, look: the only other place I could find text of his remarks was the TPM Cafe, where David Gree wrote, “Reul Marc Gerecht illustrated how little divides those we are fighting in the Middle East and those who support the Bush Administration.”

… Critics say that if such demands end up in the constitution, it could lead to the oppression of women like in other hard-line Islamic states.


But Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA analyst, said on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” that maybe that is the most democracy possible in Iraq right now.


Gerecht stated, “I think it’s important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we’d all be thrilled. I mean, women’s social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.” (CBN News)


_____________


The meaning of “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!” — which my dad used to say all the time:

Jehosaphat was a wealthy king of Jerusalem. One day an army from the east march on Jerusalem to take his gold. Jehosaphat told the people not to worry that the battle would be his and Judas’s on the following day. The people let out a joyous cry “Great Jumping Jehosaphat” . I am not sure exactly the meaning of the saying other than total joy at not having to go to war!!!

From What Is The Meaning Of This?


The photo is stolen from Drudge.