Pop Quiz: Who Is the Lamest Duck?

The New York Times got hold of a secret memo in which National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley describes the lameness of a world leader. Who is it?

"He impressed me as a leader who wanted to be strong but was having difficulty figuring out how to do so."

"The information he receives is undoubtedly skewed by his small circle of [deleted word] advisers, coloring his actions and interpretation of reality."

"The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests [name deleted] is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action."

"He may simply not have the political or security capabilities to take such steps, which risk alienating his narrow [deleted word] political base."

Sounds familiar, right? Of course I gamed the quotes by deleting the words Dawa, Maliki, and Sadrist, but it still made me wonder if Hadley was painting a portrait of Maliki in terms that he thought Bush might understand.

Full text of Hadley's brutally honest November 8 Maliki memo for cabinet-level officials here.

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