The scheduled signing of Iraq’s interim constitution was indefinitely postponed Friday after five Shiite members of the Governing Council lodged 11th hour objections to some of its key provisions.
News that the deal over the document had fallen apart wrecked the U.S.-led coalition’s plans for an upbeat, made-for-TV signing ceremony that was to have taken place at 8 a.m. EST inside the heavily fortified coalition headquarters compound–and carried live on Arabic and English news networks.
More than an hour after the signing was supposed to have happened, the six piece orchestra hired for the occasion had stopped playing, and the antique desk that had belonged to Iraq’s King Faisal stood abandoned, 25 fountain pens sitting untouched atop it. A senior coalition official emerged to tell dozens of waiting journalists that “democracy is sometimes a messy thing.”
Want to bet Rove had some campaign ads ready to go with space reserved for clips from the Triumph of Democracy in Iraq?
