It’s Game Time in Iraq! Brought to you by The Wonderful World of Dick.
Dick Cheney, that is. Vice President of the United States and ex-officio Ruler of the Universe. An unnamed senior administration official (could that be you Dick?) stated that the Veep had a special message to deliver Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq during his unexpected (cough … cough) visit to Baghdad yesterday:
Journalists traveling with the vice president reported that aboard Air Force Two en route to Iraq, someone identified only as a “senior administration official” said Cheney’s message to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki would be clear.
“We’ve got to get this work done. It’s game time. … Everybody’s got to sit down, raise their game, redouble their efforts,” the senior administration official said.
To say that it’s finally “game time” more than four years into the war is a pretty startling statement.
I saw this and thought to myself:
“Who knew Dick Cheney was secretly the head coach of Iraq?”
(cont.)
By all accounts his little pep talk to the Iraqi’s didn’t make much of an impression. Maybe next time he should take a more experienced coaching staff along with him to help get the Iraqi government in shape for the upcoming season. They appear to be a bunch of slackers after all,
Iraq’s maverick parliament speaker on Wednesday rejected U.S. criticism of the 275-seat legislature over its summer break plans [ed. note: two months beginning in June], saying it amounted to unacceptable interference in Iraqi affairs as Vice President Dick Cheney was expected to take up the issue during a visit to Baghdad.
On Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq’s parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.
and seriously lacking in team spirit.
This week, Tuesday’s session was canceled because the parliament building’s electricity was out, a result of Baghdad’s chronic power shortages. That meant microphones did not work, the windowless room in which legislators meet was dark, and there was no air-conditioning at a time the outside temperature was rising into the 90s.
Of the 275 lawmakers, 170 were present for the session that never happened. Attendance has been a persistent problem — reasons for absences range from boycotts to traffic jams caused by suicide bombings and checkpoints. The body managed to hold its session Wednesday.
Might I suggest Bill Parcells? Parcells is the former Super Bowl winning coach of the New York Giants. He’s available according to my sources, and apparently very good at taking “bad” teams and turning them into winners with his disciplined “Old School” style of coaching.
With his leadership and motivational skills, maybe we can still snatch victory from the last throes of defeat. And I bet he wouldn’t turn down the chance to be a Czar, either.
So go for it Mr. President. Hire Bill. He sure couldn’t do any worse than your current coaching staff of Cheney, Gates, Hadley and Rice.
