8-17-05,9:07am

Taking no one but the Bush administration by surprise, the Iraqis couldn't meet the August 15 deadline for drafting their constitution. Apparently, reaching an agreement on such issues as, among others, the proper role of Islam (and whose version thereof) in the new government proved more difficult than imagined (or admitted anyway) by our President and his advisors.

Go figure.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the President and his war cabinet must have considered the possibility that the Iraqi constitution would not be drafted on time. Even the dimmest and most naive of the many jingoistic, liberal-hating, Bush-backers must have sensed on some baser level that the issues facing the Iraqis tasked with drafting a constitution were more than just a little complex. As simple as many believe Bush to be, he ain't that simple.

If it is indeed true that Bush and his henchmen recognized the very real possibility that the Iraqi constitution would not be drafted on schedule, an interesting question arises: Why didn't Bush, so highly touted as a straight shooter, prepare the American public for this contingency? One would think that if the President were truly a straight shooter that he would have leveled with the American people and told them that things in Iraq might not turn out as well as advertised.

Why not simply tell the nation, 'Look, I really hope the Iraqis draft their constitution by August 15. That would be real progress, by anyone's standards. But, you know, there are a lot of competing interests at stake, not to mention unresolved animosity, and it just might not happen.' Isn't that something a straight-shooting leader would do? If not in the name of full disclosure, then at least in the name of covering his rear?

But that's the catch, isn't it? Bush is not a straight shooter. He is duplicitous and quick to dissemble.

The whole notion of Bush as a straight-shooting man of integrity is nothing more than a fabrication, a facet of his cult of personality. As with the depictions of Bush as cowboy, military veteran, common man, and Washington outsider, Bush the honest is a well-cultivated fiction. It may sound good in press releases and seems to play well in the so-called red states, but it isn't true. Bush's claim of integrity is about as real as the Democrats' claim of offering a meaningful alternative to the Republicans. It'd be nice if it were true. Alas ....

As a result of the delay in drafting Iraq's constitution, Bush has been handed a staggering political failure. For months, Bush and his mouthpieces so emphasized the importance of Iraq drafting its constitution according to schedule that it was impossible not to conclude that the Bush administration was betting the ranch that August 15 would not pass without an Iraqi constitution. The administration pinned its hopes, as well as the hopes of the nation, of withdrawing from Iraq on the August 15 deadline being met. So insistent was the Bush administration that the deadline would be met that it deliberately avoided planting seeds of doubt (some might call it reality) in the minds of the American public.

August 15th has come and gone in Iraq and, as it tends to do, reality exploded the illusions of both the administration and the American public. Iraq's constitution is delayed at least a week. In all likelihood, it will be delayed again. However long the process is delayed, the Bush administration is going to have to work overtime to spin itself out of its latest failure of integrity. It's chances don't look good. While it may be nearly 6 years too late, Americans are finally beginning to awaken to the truth about our dear President: Bush couldn't shoot straight if his life depended on it.