The Lead NYTimes story Iraqis Consider Ways to Reduce Power of Cleric seems to have suffered a Headline malfunction when the accurate headline, "After Snub of Bush, US Seeks Ouster of Iraqi President" seems to have been buried. Unsourced doubles him or herself and takes on the exciting identities of "senior Iraqi officials", "Officials involved in the talks", "Iraqi officials involved in the talks", and others. Unsourced goes to Iraq
More snark after the break
In addition, there seems to have been an editing error that took out a critical passage (highlighted).
Mr. Sadr’s relationship with Mr. Maliki has shown signs of strain. On Nov. 30, Mr. Sadr withdrew his 30 loyalists in Parliament and 6 cabinet ministers from the government. Mr. Maliki called for them to return, but siding with almost 80% of the American public, they said they would do so only if Mr. Maliki and the Americans set a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. Mr. Sadr reiterated the demand with a fiery message on Sunday.
Apparently, purple fingers aside, the Parliament is not sufficiently responsive to American orders and Unsourced, acting as "Iraqi officials" has been tasked in this effort also.
Iraqi officials are still debating whether to try to create the alliance within Parliament or to do so outside Parliament, so that the existing coalitions would be preserved in name. An alliance formed outside Parliament might work with Mr. Maliki’s cabinet to make policy and bypass the legislature on important decisions.
In fact, as the last few paragraphs show, this entire policy is justified under the Unitary Executive Do Over Doctrine. Unsourced, continues to perform as a "legislator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity".
If the parties move to replace Mr. Maliki as prime minister, one possible candidate would be Mr. Hakim’s deputy, Adel Abdul Mehdi, who was favored by the White House last spring to take the top job. He lost out when Mr. Sadr, whose family has long feuded with Mr. Hakim’s, threw his support behind Mr. Maliki’s group, the Islamic Dawa Party, in a vote within the Shiite coalition.
The parties trying to form the new alliance approached Mr. Maliki a couple of days ago to ask him to join them, said the Shiite legislator who is close to the prime minister. Senior officials in the Islamic Dawa Party balked, saying that such a move would break the Shiite coalition, anger Ayatollah Sistani and possibly pave the way for Mr. Hakim to push Mr. Maliki from his job in favor of Mr. Abdul Mehdi.
"Everyone knows Hakim wants Adel to be prime minister; it’s no secret," said the legislator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Mr. Maliki’s deliberations. "Saying you want to pull Maliki away from the extremists might just be a beautiful cover for the real goal of dropping him."
Deep Trunk offers his summary: Like other Executive Branch appointed officials, Makiki serves at the pleasure of the President.
crossposted to unsourced