I just received a tongue-in-cheek email from Jim Pinkerton who offers “You’d never get the idea that we are seeking to influence the course of Iraqi democracy — and that’s the good news here: the Iraqis won’t notice such favoritism, either” and then attached the following pic and link.
We all know that Iraq is a mess — but seriously — why are we flying Allawi around on military aircraft? This is outrageous. Even if I found it myself to overlook the thuggishness of Allawi’s past, it is inappropriate and anti-democratic for us to be offering such “soft money” support to Allawi’s campaign.
Someone call John McCain and his campaign reform knights of the roundtable Rick Davis and Trevor Potter. Looks like we need a campain finance reform initiative that blocks Department of Defense soft money contributions.
U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters fly over Baghdad as they carry Iraq’s Prime Minister lyad Allawi to meet with residents in the northern city of Tikrit, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2005.
Allawi acknowledged last week there were parts of Iraq that would be too unsafe for voting in a January 30 election, as guerrillas killed 20 people in attacks. Allawi promised to spend $2 billion to beef up Iraq’s security forces to combat insurgents trying to derail the vote. (AP Photo/Faleh Kheiber, Pool)
— Steve Clemons
