more bad news

Another day and another broken deadline in Iraq. Here's the lede in the newest BBC article:

Iraqi negotiators have been given three more days to reach agreement on the draft of a new constitution.

MPs met for a brief session minutes before the 2000 GMT deadline to receive the draft expired, but did not vote.

Somehow though, the administration is trying to play this off as a postive step. Maybe I'm totally biased, but they seem to remain utterly incapable of acknowledging any kind of unpleasant reality.

In Washington, the White House welcomed "another step forward" in the work on the constitution.

"The progress made over the past week has been impressive," said a statement, adding that democracy was "difficult and often slow, but leads to durable agreements".