It seemed odd to many that Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s address to a joint session of Congress last week would dovetail so perfectly with the Bush campaign’s message. Coincidence? No reasonable person could think so.
Naturally, all of the likely suspects — Karen Hughes, Dan Senor, David Frum — denied having anything to do with it. Yet, as the Post’s Dana Milbank noted, Allawi’s language was eerily similar — at times, even identical — to Bush’s words on the same subject.
In a follow-up, Milbank, to his credit, seems to have solved the riddle.
[D]etails have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush’s reelection campaign had been heavily involved in drafting the speech given to Congress last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
No big surprise there, but maybe now we can have an honest discussion about the appropriateness of Bush bringing the Iraqi Prime Minister to be used as a campaign prop.
Allawi’s congressional address — written in part by campaign aides, not White House staff — was part of a de facto campaign event for Bush. Someone in the administration needs to explain how and why this occurred.