White House reaffirms al-Maliki support

With Bush, an endorsement could be more deadly than non-support. Remember "Heck of a job Brownie."?

President Bush, scrambling to show he still backs embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, offered him a fresh endorsement on Wednesday, calling him "a good guy, good man with a difficult job."

"I support him," Bush said a day after he acknowledged frustration with the Iraqi leader's inability to bridge political divisions in his country. "It's not up to the politicians in Washington, D.C., to say whether he will remain in his position. It is up to the Iraqi people who now live in a democracy and not a dictatorship."

Bush's validation of al-Maliki, inserted at the last minute into his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, stole the spotlight from Bush's attempt to buttress support for the war by likening today's fight against extremism to past conflicts in Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

I seriously doubt al-Maliki has long to survive.

And what political genius inserted that confirmation just to undercut Bush's main message. Very clever.

Via Yahoo® News.