McCain Camp Now Officially Disputing Maliki Translation
For the first time, the McCain campaign is trying to dismiss Maliki's endorsement of Obama's troop-withdrawal timeline by questioning the translation -- even though a published report in the New York Times convincingly argues that the translation was accurate.
In a conference called just now with reporters, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann responded to a question about Malik's comments by citing "the reaction from the Iraqi government, which made it clear that there were apparently some translation problems in the quote, that's not the position of the prime minister."
"I certainly can't believe that the Obama campaign would take a quote that's already been clarified out of context, and try to hang their Iraq policy on that," Scheunemann later added.
Of course, it's worth noting a few things: The New York Times independently verified the translation based on the original tape, and the "clarification" only came 18 hours later, after Bush Administration officials called to complain about it. And on top of that, the Iraqi official who issued the statement is now saying he's hopeful for a withdrawal.
Here's the audio from the call:
Well, let's see how the distressingly credulous press (when it comes to McCain) treats this.
Mark Halperin? You out there?
July 21, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Randy Scheunemann descends further into fantasy world, much like when he was working for Ahmad Chalabi to start the Iraq War, a role to which he apparently aspires to return in the now increasingly unlikely seeming event that McCain wins the presidency (with Scheunemann playing a key role in increasing the unlikelihood).
Will the media notice? Doubtful.
July 21, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
They cannot be this incompetent, can they? They've had 24 hours to pull a story together. How can they "hang their hat" on a mistranslation when the NYT clearly stated that was not the case?
Let's see how far the media lets them take this obvious lie.
July 21, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The mistranslation is understandable. The Arabic word for 'withdrawal' actually sounds very similar to the word for 'hundred year clusterfuck.'"
July 21, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Man, that's funny.
July 21, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good one!
July 21, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Snark of the Week!
July 21, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Man, oh man! That was funny the first time I read it. Still funny. First LOL of my day. Many, many thanks. ;)
July 22, 2008 9:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see what their response is to al-Dabbagh's new quote, which was said in ENGLISH.
July 21, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is beyond pathetic! And hopefully the voters will recognize it as such -- on a par with Bush's denial of global warming.
July 21, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Let's see how far the media lets them take this obvious lie."
As far they want, and they will aid and abet.
July 21, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
One the today show, Meredith did go after McCain on his (dementia) statements, and McCain came back at her proving, yes, he has dementia. Wow, this video is just painful. He denies, he mumbles (think McGoo), it is an awful thing to watch. One bright side, the nation will no longer need sleeping aides should McCain be President. Watching him will do the trick.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25741286#25779945
July 21, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can see why a lot of Republican operatives are privately crying in their beer over the ineptness of McCain as a candidate.
July 21, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Up is down, War is peace, black is white, the translation is all wrong...
And isn't Randy Scheunemann part of the neocon cabal that got us into the war in Iraq in the first place? As far as I'm concerned nobody involved in that should have any credibility at all. Why doesn't McCain just hire Sadam Hussein's old press man Baghdad Bob, he would be just as credible as Randy Scheunemann.
July 21, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. In the neocon world, incompetence continually gets rewarded.
July 21, 2008 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe he'd prefer some translators from Czechoslovakia.
July 21, 2008 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who are located on the Iraq/Pakistan border :0)
July 21, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course. Where they train Al Qaeda to fight the Sunni hoards.
July 21, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
WHY ISN"T WHAT TEH MALIKI SPOKESMAN SAID IN ENGLISH ALL OVER TEH NEWS?
July 21, 2008 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anytime you're trying to dispute a translation of a quote, you're on the losing side of that argument.
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
July 21, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
It should also be noted that McCain has blamed several of his own gaffes on bad transcriptions, brackets, and out of context quotes.
I am curious how long journalists will allow the McCain camp to continue to claim that they don't do this basic aspect of their job correctly.
You'd expect blow-back but I think big media journalists may be strangely self-hating egoists.
July 21, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
You got to understand, there really is little that can be done to quench the impact of Maliki's statements. The statements have were a serious blow to McCain. Adding in the fact the White House sent the wrong email out to the distribution list to the reporters only added to the debacle that the Republicans are in.
The response here is a simple one of desperation. The campaign is falling apart at the seems and now all they can do is attack the messenger, because the message is sound.
July 21, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
They could have said "Okay, sounds like the surge worked and we can leave."
What's so hard about that?
Oops -- I forgot that Scheunemann works for a company that makes money by promising to influence US foreign policy in favor of oil-rich states. On reflection, I can see why they're so committed to retaining permanent bases in the mideast.
July 21, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Alex
Good point. They could have stated such; however not sure how that would have played out given the weeks of attacking Obama for pushing for a redeployment with the tagline that Obama does not understand the issues that our forces are facing on the ground in Iraq.
Simply put, they backed themselves into a corner the last few weeks and maliki and bush basically shut the door on them this past weekend.
July 21, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's depressing how little coverage this story gets on the MSM, like zero. The major network evening news on NBC last night said nothing. That Andria Mitchell is worthless. She is married to Alan Greenspan, so what should one expect.
July 21, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also nothing -- zero -- on the "Today" this morning. It's all quite stunning, even given the cellar-level standards of the press.
July 21, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta love this. The first paragraph of the AP report appearing on Yahoo News says:
Spin that, Randy.
July 21, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
THE SURGE IS WORKING! THE SURGE IS WORKING!
July 21, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
From the NY Times article:
"But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence."
Anyone interested in reading the entire interview, you can find it here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,566852,00.html
What I found interesting, and what the press seems to ignore, is the following exchange:
SPIEGEL: How short-term? Are you hoping for a new agreement before the end of the Bush administration?
Maliki: So far the Americans have had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat. But that isn't the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaida and the militias. The American lead negotiators realize this now, and that's why I expect to see an agreement taking shape even before the end of President Bush's term in office. With these negotiations, we will start the whole thing over again, on a clearer, better basis, because the first proposals were unacceptable to us.
SPIEGEL: Immunity for the US troops is apparently the central issue.
Maliki: It is a fundamental problem for us that it should not be possible, in my country, to prosecute offences or crimes committed by US soldiers against our population. But other issues are no less important: How much longer will these soldiers remain in our country? How much authority do they have? Who controls how many, soldiers enter and leave the country and where they do so?
July 21, 2008 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I looked it up on The Google. When someone tells an unconvincing lie to avoid facing an unpleasant truth, it is called a "Scheunemann moment."
I expect we'll have quite a few of these Scheunemanns over the next several months.
July 21, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, what can we expect them to do? They have to come out and say false crap like this. Kinda funny, in a way. McCain's ass is now waaaay out on a limb.
July 21, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even Bob Dole ran a better campaign than these guys! If this is any indication of McCain's management skills, I'd hate to see his Katrina moment.
July 21, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love the fact that Scheunemann used the term "inartful" to describe Maliki's statement. That's the same word Obama used to describe Wes Clark's statement about McCain's military service. Not only is the McCain campaign adopting Obama's foreign policy positions, they're adopting his language as well. Hard to portray yourself as a leader when there's nothing original about your campaign.
July 21, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tsk, tsk. What are we to do? McDementia wants to fight for 100 yrs. Maliki and iraq want us in by 2010. What to do, what to do. Seems like somebody is boxe in. "Time horizon" indeed!!
July 21, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
At Memorandum this post is linked under a Andy McArthy recap of the whole Maliki affair where surprisingly he gets most of it right. He does say Maliki's DAWA party didn't support the invasion from the start which is way out in fantasyland as far as I know. They knew when we went in chances were they had as good a shot as anybody of getting the keys to the kingdom and were barred on pain of death from entering it under Saddam.
In the end McArthy seems to be making the case that Maliki was never our friend and it's about time we started treating Iraq again as an enemy like Syria and Iran. Sigh, the more things change the more they stay the same in wingnutville.
July 21, 2008 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink