NIE helps enemies?

The Horse's Mouth reports on what the other end of the horse is spewing:

Lieberman Attacks Democrats For Criticizing Maliki -- On Same Day That Report From U.S. Intelligence Services Criticizes Maliki

Okay, it's admittedly not hard to have fun at Joe Lieberman's expense, but this one's too good to pass up.

This morning Lieberman and his chief flack Marshall Wittmann put out a press release containing Lieberman's usual attacks on Democrats over Iraq. The duo faulted "Congressional critics" of Iraq's Maliki government and slammed Dems who have criticized Maliki as basically helping our "enemies."

But in a case of comically awful timing, Lieberman and Wittmann's latest attack on Dems came just hours before the release of excerpts of a new National Intelligence Estimate from our intelligence services that...criticized the performance of the Maliki government in terms that are awfully similar to the things Democrats have been saying.

Needless to say, Lieberman and Wittmann have yet to put out a subsequent press release attacking the U.S. intelligence services that authored the NIE.

And in a final irony, the NIE assessment is actually closer in key ways to what Dems have been saying than Lieberman's claims are. Lieberman's release says we have made "enormous progress" in Iraq. But the NIE says that we have only had "measurable but uneven improvements" on the security front, and adds that "the level of overall violence remains high" and that Iraqi leaders are "unable to govern effectively" -- an overall view of things echoed by Dems in recent days.

When Lieberman and Wittmann send out their next release attacking our intelligence services for painting this dire picture of the state of play in Iraq, this blog will be the first to post it. Guaranteed.

Don't hold yer breath, Horse.

You can't make up stuff like this!