Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Pig-Pen Ambassador" from April 5, 2009 commenting on Chris Hill's confirmation hearing (see the March 25, 2009 snapshot and the March 26th snapshot ).
Chris Hill, the failed US Ambassador to Iraq, is back in the news because he's making a public spectacle of himself yet again.
He's written a fact-free and reality-challenged essay for POLITICO.
And were we like Salon, I'd just ignore it or maybe even highlight it and proclaim, "It's true!"
Because it does feed a truthful narrative of Barack Obama being isolated and refusing to engage, etc., etc.
The White House really can't push back on Leon Panetta. Panetta's a known and he also knows a great deal more than he put in his book, they don't want to be in a p.r. struggle with him.
Chris Hill, however, is the perfect person to go after. They could, for example, leak his personnel file. Of course, the backfire there is revealing a certain incident that should have prevented from being nominated to be US Ambassador to Iraq.
Chris isn't a very smart person so he may be being as truthful as he can be when he claims that Hillary Clinton betrayed him or Iraq or whatever.
Hillary was not in charge of Iraq. First off, the entire time Hill was over there (and he should have known this), the Defense Dept was the lead on Iraq. That's because troops were on the ground there in large numbers.
But Hillary was never going to be in charge of Iraq. It went through the National Security Council on up to Joe Biden, Vice President. That was decided long before Hillary was confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of State.
Chris has a 'troubled' history with women -- yeah, Chris, I read your file -- and it comes through as he attempts to use Hillary as a bookend -- slamming her in his bitchy way at the start of his essay and at the end.
I'm not rescuing Hillary with these comments. I hope she doesn't run for president. I will not vote for her if she does. I believe that was noted the day she snarled "What difference does it make!" to Congress.
But Hillary was not in charge of Iraq and we noted that over and over from 2009 and forward.
Chris plays fast and loose with the truth throughout.
He writes of "Ray" betraying him in a meeting after Iraq's 2010 elections.
Gen Ray Odierno did not like Chris Hill.
He did not start out disliking him. He started out seeing him as someone he had to work with.
But Chris is a little bitch.
And when the press preferred to talk to Odierno who would answer questions directly as opposed to Chris who meandered and never got to the point, Chrissy pouted.
Chrissy whined to Odierno that he was making Chrissy look bad.
Odierno allegedly asked a lower ranking official present, after Chris left the room, "Is he for real?"
Because who has time for Chrissy's dramatics?
Chris was for real and stamped his feet until finally the White House -- which backed him at this point -- told Odierno that all press on Iraq would be done by Chris.
At this point, Ray Odierno is also cut out of the loop.
The top US commander in Iraq is no longer in direct communication with the White House which is now hearing 'reports' on Iraq solely from Chrissy.
We'll go into what that means in the snapshot today.
But for now, let's just note Chris Hill has written a self-serving column that is full of distortions and outright lies.
He vouched for Nouri -- a fact you never get in his long column -- and championed Nouri.
The White House could very easily point publicly to Hill's embrace of Nouri and their reliance on Hill for why they made the mistake, in 2010, in embracing Hill.
The election results were not, as Hill maintains, "a dead heat."
Two more members of Parliament than the other side is an election win.
Hill's self-serving lies do not hold up anymore than he held up as a US Ambassador. By June of 2010, the general consensus in the administration was that Hill might be cracking up. His long naps (sometimes under his desk), his diva-like explosions, his tirades against Iraqis (calling them stupid and "savages") -- while they were in hearing range -- were all filtering back to DC.
We'll go into in the snapshot and we'll also note why Hillary couldn't be lead -- not just the conflict with Samantha Power but a statement from 2008. Hillary was never going to be the lead on Iraq due to that statement.
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The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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