McCain is screwed. His moron neocon spokesman won't be able to spin this, even with a well trained press core (well, potty and obedience trained I should say).

McCain campaign's response: "The surge is working. The surge is working. The surge is working. The surge is working. Obama was wrong. Obama was wrong. Obama was wrong. Obama was wrong."

That's how he responded to Meredith Viera's questions this morning.

No matter what the situation, or question, the answer will be "the surge is working and Obama was wrong".

But whatever. Jonathan Chait still has a crush on McCain.

If he only knew how to use the internets, he wouldn't find himself being embarrassed with such tiresome regularity

With one of McCain's big stances withering away beneath his feet we can expect a string of Terror Alerts [tm(2008) BushCo,Inc.] beginning sometime in mid-September.

Hillary Clinton remains the best candidate for president.

Poor Foghat. In denial still. He must not have got the memo:

A spokesperson for Sen. Clinton implicitly distanced the candidate from Lieberman's effort, telling the Huffington Post: "Senator Clinton fully supports Senator Obama. She continues to urge all of her supporters to get behind him. ... She continues to do everything she can to rally folks behind him. We don't support any effort that doesn't."

Imagine if Roosevelt and Truman had decided to pull troops out of WWII based on public pressure and a timetable rather than victory.

A specious arguement comparing a real world war with this phony, ginned-up "War On Terror".

As Iraq pushes for the U.S. to pullout and stability is at an acceptable level McCain would pull the troops out.

Pulling troops out of Iraq, under any circumstances, directly contradicts the reason the neocons put us there in the first place: to maintain a controlling presence and influence in the Middle East. McCain will never pull troops out.

He will quite easily show that claim to be wrong.

How, pray tell?

Nope. You are not even close, per usual. Comparing the fiasco in Iraq with WWII is laughable. We can always count on you to make us laugh at you though!

BTW, McBush wants a permanent presence in Iraq, sport. Stick to the facts.

Game, set, match, championship.

http://www.jedreport.com/2008/07/you-cant-mistra.html

watch the video, Greg!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25782385#25782385

Here's the quote:

We are not talking about the timetable which is being used for the election. We are looking for a real timetable that Iraqis set.

When is that timetable?

Well up to 2010.

let's see:

maliki has adopted obama's iraq plan

mcWar has adopted obama's afghanistan plan

bush has adopted obama's iran plan.

i believe this is called leadership.

Two defining headlines right now:

1) On the MSNBC web site
"Iraq echos Obama pullout time line.
Statement follows candidate's meeting with Iraqi prime minister."

2) On the British Guardian newspaper web site
"Iraq backs Obama troop pullout plan.
Government spokesman ends confusion over Iraqi PM's comments on presidential candidate's timetable."

Game, set, and match. It was amazing today that the McCain campaign conference call was still trying to breathe life into the "mistranslation" memo put out by the U.S. military. It's time for McCain to concede the pullout issue to the Iraqi people, and move on to the issue of what to do in Afghanistan.

The story is picking up steam. The fact that the statements were made following the meeting with the congressional delegation will certainly draw interest. What was discussed? Did Obama give the Maliki government enough political cover to confidently come out with this endorsement of a timeframe for withdrawal?

Let's see how this gets covered by the major news networks tonight. If this gets a lot of coverage, I believe we will be witnessing the crumbling of the McCain campaign.

I was (unwisely) listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio today on the way to work and he said that he believed that the original translation (which he paraphrased as "an endorsement of Obama's campaign") was probably correct and even pointed out that the translator was an Iraqi. He then went on to mention that, in that interview, al-Maliki had expressed no "gratitude" to the United States for the successful surge. So the new rightwing meme for low-information voters (reinforced by SFCWallace's comment above) seems to be: "Sure, al-Maliki did endorse Obama's views, but he's an Arab, and we know what they're like: this is just another sign that terrorists like Obama."

The problem is, of course, that the Bush administration has been talking up al-Maliki for two years. And true, al-Maliki is probably corrupt and incompetent, and is saying what he is saying because of his own desire to be reelected, but, in that, he is reflecting what the people of Iraq want and it will be a hard sell to the American people that we should stay in Iraq longer than the people of Iraq and their leaders want us there.

I still think Obama has moved the goal posts. Didn't he originally say "Out of Iraq immediately"? Then he said "Out of Iraq in 16 months". As I recall, the MoveOn crowd was not too pleased with the shift in policy.

I think it's very shrewd how the Obama campaign has dodged the whole "surge is working" meme by contrasting his new position of "16 months and out" to McCain's "100 years". The comments by the Iraqi government is just solidifying the strategy change. Brilliant.

But but but but...

The liberal times refused to publish his op-ed!

It's easy to see Obama is looking out to the horizon to chart where he wants to lead the country. His trip to the Middle East and Europe is publicly demonstrating his ability to reach across the isle with anyone - repugs, democrats, Europeans, and the power players in the Middle East - to build consensus and coalitions to support his vision of where he wants to go with the country.

As for McCain, he has the same "vision-problem" that Bu$h has. He also has trouble seeing the forest because of the trees so it's easy to see he has no plan where he would take the country if elected. That's why he keeps regurgitating the same ole repug leftover policies of Bu$h and the neo-cons.