You remember the mind-blowing New York Times reporton the Pentagon's program of seeding compliant military pundits on TV to promote the Iraq war, right? The Defense Department inspector general's office was required by law to release its investigation on the matter on Monday, but it's been a bit late.

Thankfully, Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH) was on the case with a classic strongly worded letter. So now the report is expected to drop tomorrow.

So how big is Obama's mandate on foreign policy? A new poll from The Washington Post suggest that it's sizable indeed.

The poll finds that large majorities hold opinions about foreign policy that dovetail with Obama's to a striking degree. Despite the fact that a sizable majority thinks things are going well in Iraq, a bigger majority -- 70% -- want Obama to stick to his promise to pull out the troops within the next 16 months, though there are differences as to how quickly he should begin doing that. Sixty-four percent say the war wasn't worth fighting.

Meanwhile, a majority of 51% agrees with Obama that Iraq is peripheral to the broader war on terror, while the same number agrees with him that Afghanistan is the central front in the terror war.

These numbers remind us that the campaign's relentless focus on the economy has obscured the degree to which Obama's win also represented a big victory for Obama's foreign policy vision over GOP militarism, jingoism and faux patriotism.

This really isn't complicated. President Bush was not being "blunt" or showing "candor" when he told ABC News in an interview published yesterday that his biggest regret was the failure of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Rather, he was whitewashing away his own role in the fisaco by promoting the demonstrable falsehood that there was no available evidence or information that argued against war and that he was merely fooled into invading Iraq solely by the bad intel.

The big news orgs seem eager to help Bush do this. Not a single one of their reports on the interview that we can find bothered to tell readers that there was plenty of good intel -- ignored by the Bush administration -- saying that Saddam wasn't the threat Bush was claiming he was. Nor did any of them bother mentioning that the weapons inspectors in Iraq were saying the same thing -- something that also went ignored.

These facts are absolutely central to understanding Bush's efforts to falsify history in yesterday's interview. Yet they went unmentioned in reports by Reuters, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, CNN, and The New York Times.

Worse, at least one news org pretended that Bush was making some kind of admission or concession here. WaPo hailed Bush's "candor" and said he was being "unusually blunt."

Let's go over this very slowly. For Bush to blame the failure of intel for his decision to invade is not a concession at all, and it is not an admission of failure on his part. Rather, it is the opposite of these things. It is an evasion of responsibility for what happened.

Yet the big news orgs seem unable -- or unwilling -- to grasp this simple dynamic or give readers the info they need to understand it, and for some reason are perfectly willing to enable Bush's falsification of history.

As if right on cue, Barack Obama's successful national security presser today, in which he declared that the "buck stops with me" and took full responsibility for his presidency's vision, is cast in an even more positive light by the deeply pathetic interview that his predecessor just gave to ABC News.

In the interview, which was conduced by Charlie Gibson, George W. Bush evades responsibility for his catastrophic foreign policies to the last, saying that his greatest regret was over something that he allegedly didn't control -- the intel failure in Iraq:

BUSH: I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

Of course, Bush made the decision to overlook all the good intel -- not to mention the claims of those poor forgotten inspectors -- saying that Saddam wasn't really a threat at all, or certainly not one requiring the response Bush himself ordered.

One overlooked thing about this is that not only Bush, but many supporters of the war -- Dems and liberal hawks included -- also have a vested interest in pretending that the good intel never existed and those inspectors never said what they said. Those inconvenient historical facts reflect rather badly on them, too. With so many opinion-makers having vested interests of their own in telling the story this way, history has been tidily rewritten, and Bush is able to make this claim without a peep of objection from his big-time network interviewer.

In other news from the interview, Bush conceded that he was "unprepared for war," though he meant it more by way of saying that he hadn't asked for war. No follow-up from his interviewer about the war of choice Bush started, or the fact that the self-described role of "war president" wasn't one Bush was all that adverse to adopting.

Late Update: Matthew Yglesias adds the crucial context here, which is that it was the complete lack of an "opposition party" that is largely responsible for so much going "down the memory hole."

Another key moment from Obama's national security presser today: In case there were any lingering doubts about how his decision to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates might impact his promise to withdraw from Iraq, Obama made it clear: Gates will be ordered to pull out.

Obama said...

As I said throughout the campaign, I will be giving Secretary Gates and our military a new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control. We will also ensure that we have the strategy -- and resources -- to succeed against al Qaeda and the Taliban. As Bob said not too long ago, Afghanistan is where the war on terror began, and it is where it must end.

Obviously, the devil will be in the details over what sort of timing Gates sees as necessary for "responsibly" ending the war. And there will be plenty of room for disagreement ahead on that and other fronts. But the fact that Obama went out of his way to reiterate his commitment to ending the war at his first presser with Gates seems noteworthy and encouraging.

Late Update: Obama elaborated a bit on his pull-out plans in the Q and A with reporters that followed. Asked if he remained committed to a 16-month withdrawal timetable, he said that he believed it was "the right time-frame" but added that he would listen to the commanders' views when crafting the details of his pull-out plan.

Obama said that we are on a "glide path" towards troop reductions and said he'd be meeting with Secretary Gates, the Joint Chiefs and the commanders on the ground in the days ahead "to make a determination as to how we proceed in that withdrawal process."

But Obama did take care to point out that he was reserving the option of keeping a "residual force" in place, just as he did during the campaign. In essence, he's (understandably) preserving the wiggle room on timing and other questions that he sought to during the campaign.

One of Sarah Palin's key claims at the debate last night -- one that has gone largely unremarked on --was her assertion that Joe Biden strongly supported John McCain's Iraq policies, and opposed those of Barack Obama, until this campaign got underway.

We took a look at the record, and found that this claim is, like so many others, a near-complete falsehood.

In the debate, Palin said:

And you had supported John McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly until this race and you had opposed very adamantly Barack Obama's military strategy, including cutting off funding for the troops that attempt all through the primary.

And I watched those debates, so I remember what those were all about.

The claim that Biden supported McCain's policies "pretty adamantly until this is race" is essentially a lie, and the record proves it.

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One of the McCain campaign's chief assaults on Barack Obama is that McCain is insisting that the troops return only after "victory" in Iraq, while Obama refuses to use that word -- a position the McCain forces describe as tantamount to wanting to lose.

But it turns out that none other than General Petraeus may now be refusing to use the word "victory," too.

In an interview with the BBC, Petraeus said he didn't know if he could promise "victory," said he didn't know if he would ever even use that word, and suggested that using it is irresponsible. Here's the key exchange:

Q: Do you think you will ever use the word "victory"?

Petraeus: I don't know that I will. I think that all of us at different times have recognized the need for real restraint in our assessments, in our pronouncements, if you will. And we have tried to be very brutally honest and forthright in what we have provided to Congress, to the press, and to ourselves.

A bit later, Petraeus elaborated:

"This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade...it's not war with a simple slogan."

This seems a bit at odds with McCain's frequent assertion that our goal should be for our troops to come home with "victory" and "honor." What's more, the McCain forces have directly faulted Obama for refusing to use the word "victory." In her convention speech, Sarah Palin said:

"This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word `victory' except when he's talking about his own campaign."

This is not to suggest that Obama and Petraeus are in agreement on Iraq. Rather, the point is that the simple-minded bromides and attacks coming from McCain and Palin are at odds with the analysis offered by Petraeus himself.

Late Update: Here's the video:

If you would, take a minute to watch this video of a Democratic contributor to CNN demonstrating what seems like an effective way of going on the offensive against the GOP on national security.

The speaker is Democratic National Committeeman Robert Zimmerman, who might not be as well known as some high-profile on-air analyst types but is a CNN regular who frequently gets feisty with Republicans...

The GOPer is Bay Buchanan, who opens by saying that John McCain "owns" national security as an issue. Zimmerman counters by pointing out the extent to which the entire debate over Iraq has shifted towards Obama.

"You now see Prime Minister Maliki supporting the time line of Obama and President Bush," Zimmerman says, adding: "The only one not calling for a time line out of Iraq is John McCain."

That last line strikes me as pithy and attention-grabbing, the sort of formulation that other Dem surrogates might employ more often: It makes the case that Obama has heavily impacted the war debate while simultaneously isolating McCain and painting him as too stubborn to leave his corner.

Late Update: Let's scratch my previous Bush formulation. A commenter below suggests something better: "Bush has finally adopted Obama's position. Now the only one who doesn't want to leave Iraq is John McCain."

Here's the response from Obama spokesperson Bill Burton to McCain's attack today proclaiming that Obama wants us to lose in Iraq out of "ambition":

"All his bluster, distortions and negative attacks notwithstanding, it is hard to understand how Senator McCain can at once proclaim his support for the sovereign government of Iraq, and then stubbornly defy their expressed support for a timeline to remove our combat brigades from their country. The difference in this race is that John McCain is intent on spending $10 billion a month on an open-ended war, while Barack Obama thinks we should bring this war to a responsible end and invest in our pressing needs here at home."

The idea that McCain's Iraq policies are directly at odds with what the Iraqi government wants has gotten scattered mention by Team Obama in statements and ads. Perhaps this is the start of a renewed effort to push it for all it's worth.

A bunch of folks have pointed out already that yesterday's long New York Times piece on John McCain's response to 9/11 is really, really good.

With McCain today questioning Obama's judgment on Iraq, this nugget from the Times piece is really worth flagging -- it highlights very vividly just how eager McCain was to go to war with Iraq in the days after the terror attacks:

Within hours, Mr. McCain, the Vietnam War hero and famed straight talker of the 2000 Republican primary, had taken on a new role: the leading advocate of taking the American retaliation against Al Qaeda far beyond Afghanistan. In a marathon of television and radio appearances, Mr. McCain recited a short list of other countries said to support terrorism, invariably including Iraq, Iran and Syria...

Within a month he made clear his priority. "Very obviously Iraq is the first country," he declared on CNN. By Jan. 2, Mr. McCain was on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, yelling to a crowd of sailors and airmen: "Next up, Baghdad!"

Recall that a key McCain campaign message is that he hates war and that he, unlike the man he would replace, knows its costs and approaches it with great reluctance. In that context, video of this moment referenced by The Times would be gold.

John McCain is ratcheting up his attacks on Obama over Iraq in a speech this morning, declaring flatly that Obama wants the U.S. to fail in Iraq because of "ambition."

In the speech, which is going on now, McCain accuses Obama of having tried to "legislate failure" in Iraq. He adds his familiar charge that Obama would rather lose the war than lose the election, and declares that Obama's desire to lose in Iraq is motivated by nothing but his desire to be president:

Senator Obama still cannot quite bring himself to admit his own failure in judgment. Nor has he been willing to heed the guidance of General Petraeus, or to listen to our troops on the ground when they say -- as they have said to me on my trips to Iraq: "Let us win, just let us win." Instead, Senator Obama commits the greater error of insisting that even in hindsight, he would oppose the surge. Even in retrospect, he would choose the path of retreat and failure for America over the path of success and victory. In short, both candidates in this election pledge to end this war and bring our troops home. The great difference is that I intend to win it first.

Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president. What's less apparent is the judgment to be commander in chief. And in matters of national security, good judgment will be at a premium in the term of the next president -- as we were all reminded ten days ago by events in the nation of Georgia.

Here you have the Roveian strategy at its most naked: Keep repeating that your opponent's strong point -- his judgment in opposing the war, something that majorities agree was a bad idea -- is a negative.

Also, it bears repeating that here McCain is basically accusing Obama of treason. Full speech after the jump.

Late Update: The Obama camp responds.

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This is really, really perplexing. It turns out that according to a new analysis, troops deployed abroad have donated six times more money to the candidate who wants to bring the troops home from Iraq:

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.

Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

Interestingly, the analysis notes that in 2000, George W. Bush outraised Al Gore by two to one among military personnel, but in 2004, with the war underway, John Kerry closed the gap somewhat. Now, with the war having gone on for more than five years, the Dem has an overwhelming advantage among troops abroad.

I can't account for this odd phenomenon. Anyone have any ideas why this might be happening?

Looks like we have yet another point in common between John McCain and George Bush: Both are responding to Nouri al-Maliki's inconvenient endorsement of Barack Obama's 16-month withdrawal timeline by saying that Maliki didn't really mean it.

From a new interview with the President...

SEOUL, Aug 5 -- President Bush said Monday he sees little distance between himself and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on how to approach troop reductions in Iraq, dismissing the suggestion that Maliki had effectively endorsed Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's plan to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades in 16 months.

"I talk to him all the time, and that's not what I heard," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard Air Force One on the start of a trip to Asia. "I heard a man who wants to work with the United States to come up with a rational way to have the United States withdraw combat troops depending upon conditions on the ground, that's all."

If that sounds familiar, that's because it is. Last month McCain was asked what he would do as president if Maliki persisted in saying what he said, which is that he wants the troops out in around 16 months.

McCain's reply: "He won't. He won't. He won't."

Maliki either didn't say what he said, or he didn't mean what he said. Life is so simple sometimes...

As noted here on Friday, we've compiled a vast (perhaps too vast) timeline of McCain's statements about Bush administration policy on Iraq -- and it casts some doubt on McCain's claim that he was a broad critic of Bush policy and a prescient predictor of what would happen with the war.

Now we've updated the timeline with a couple of real finds from readers. There's this one from a McCain Op ed in The New York Times (wonderfully entitled "The Right War for the Right Reasons") which shows McCain's predictive powers to have been less than keen...

[N]o one can plausibly argue that ridding the world of Saddam Hussein will not significantly improve the stability of the region and the security of American interests and values....Isn't it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness?' Didn't those who argued that the war 'would not significantly improve the stability of the region and the security of American interests and values,' and that 'antipathy toward the U. S. in the Islamic world' would skyrocket, have a point?

We also added this fun nugget, which casts a bit of doubt on McCain's claim to have "consistently" insisted we need more troops in Iraq...

During a 2005 appearance on Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked McCain, "Do you believe we have enough American troops on the ground right now?" McCain answered, "I think we have in numbers probably enough."

If you all unearth more, we'll add them. You can view our updated timeline right here.

John McCain has unveiled a new slogan against Barack Obama: That Obama's attitudes on Iraq represent "the audacity of hopelessness"!

In his speech today at the American GI Forum convention in Colorado, McCain excoriated Obama for opposing the surge, saying that the surge policies "amounted to a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief."

"Fortunately, Senator Obama failed, not our military," McCain later added. "We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right."

Full prepared speech after the jump.

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White House Irony Watch...

The Bush Administration's statement today on its new sanctions against Zimbabwe call into question just how much of a sense of self-awareness they have. Quoting President Bush:

"No regime should ignore the will of its own people and calls from the international community without consequences."

We might point them in the direction of polling data at home -- not to mention international opinion -- showing that people want a timetable to withdraw from Iraq.

In yet another piece of evidence that the GOP really needs to get its online act together, the RNC's Web site still has their counter of how long it's supposedly been since Barack Obama went to Iraq, going all the way back to January 2006:

Um, the correct answer is more like four days.

Check out this new ad from Vote Vets, set to air on national cable. It does what many anti-war voices have been hesitant to do: Declare that by refusing to formulate a plan for withdrawal from Iraq, John McCain's dedication to the basic idea of freedom has been called into question.

"But Senator McCain would occupy Iraq indefinitely, against their wishes," declares Brandon Woods, an Iraq War veteran. "That's not what freedom means. That's not what we fought for. Senator, I thought you would know better."

Okay, this afternoon John McCain pushed back on criticism of his Anbar-surge timeline flub by arguing, in effect, that the overall strategy change that made the Anbar Awakening possible began before the actual surge in troops:

The Arizona senator has told reporters during a stop at a super market in Bethlehem, Pa., that what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "made up of a number of components." McCain says some components of the surge began before Bush ordered more U.S. troops into Iraq.

McCain says U.S. Col. Sean MacFarland started carrying out elements of a new counterinsurgency strategy as early as December 2006.

Hmmm. McCain is crediting the success of the surge to strategic components that didn't involve the actual increase in troops? Sounds a bit like he's undermining the troops, doesn't it?

Seriously, what McCain actually said is that one of the key figures in the Awakening "was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening."

But MacFarland himself, who is cited by McCain above, first started describing the stirring of the awakening in September 2006, months before the surge strategy was announced in January.

Maybe McCain is arguing that we can use the "surge" label on any aspect of the war we want? The surge: It can be whatever you want it to be...

Ooooooooooo-kaaaaaaaay....

Now we have a McCain surrogate explaining away McCain's flubbing of the Anbar Awakening and surge timing by saying that asking for the truth about Iraq undermines the troops...

We listened to that several times, and we're pretty sure that this McCain surrogate, Nancy Pfotenhauer, actually said...

"Barack Obama and his supporters can try to litigate what came first or what was crucial, but that's really an attempt to undermine the significance and the impact of the American troops and their sacrifice and their effort."

A Deluxe TPM Lava Lamp to anyone who can name a single thing about Obama's entire existence that doesn't undermine the troops at this point...

MSNBC teases the results of a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll coming this evening:

With the news that Iraq's prime minister wants the US to set a timetable for withdrawal, 60% of registered voters believe it's a good idea for the US to set such a timetable, while 30% say it's a bad idea.

Twice as many voters agree with Obama and al-Maliki on Iraq than agree with McCain -- after weeks of being buffeted by the McCain message that calling for a withdrawal timeline is tantamount to advocating for surrender, defeat, and even dishonor to the troops.

The Republican National Committee has just unleashed a tough new radio attack ad that hits Obama for voting against the Iraq supplemental without withdrawal timelines last year, casting it as a vote against funding our troops in wartime:

In a somewhat puckish touch, the ad, which is timed to coincide with Obama's trip to Berlin, will run in Berlin, PA; Berlin, WI; and Berlin, NH.

"If Obama can't rise above politics to support our soldiers in a time of war, then how can he claim to have the strength to change the way Washington works?" the ad concludes. "John McCain is ready to lead. Barack Obama is not."

That last clause contrasting the candidates on readiness to lead represents a bit of a sharpening of the GOP message attacking Obama, something Republicans have struggled with, and foreshadows what's ahead.

That said, if Obama voted against funding the troops because he opposed a supplemental without timelines last spring, than McCain, too, voted against funding the troops when he opposed the other supplemental that did have timelines.

Full script after the jump.

Late Update: Just to clarify, the ad is running in the Johnstown-Altoona market in PA, the Green Bay-Appleton market in WI, and the Portland-Auburn market in NH.

Late Late Update: Obama spokesperson Hari Sevugan responds:

"There are honest differences between Senator Obama's position on Iraq and Senator McCain's, but there's no question that both support our troops. Under the RNC's definition, John McCain would have also chosen politics over our military when he urged George Bush to veto funding for the troops, and we know that's not the case. This is the sort of distasteful and misleading attack from the Rove playbook that the American people are tired of, that does nothing to give our troops the equipment they need, and distracts from the honest debate we should be having about how we can keep the country secure."

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Pro-war Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt has come up with a creative way to deal with al-Maliki's inconvenient endorsement of Obama's pull-out timeline: Pretend it never happened.

A WaPo editorial today On Obama's Iraq trip begins as follows...

THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.

The basis for this claim? The editorial continues...

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind.

Now, there's a certain beauty in Hiatt's claim that the fact that the Iraqi government's timetable would extend seven months beyond Obama's somehow shows that Iraqi leaders don't support Obama's timing. After all, WaPo's headline writers were pushing this self-evidently absurd claim the other day, something Josh suggested might show that the edit page's slant was bleeding on to the news pages. Now here they are both pulling the same rhetorical hoax, like a pair of bumbling confidence-men who both accidentally play the same part in a two-person con-game.

To reiterate, the "seven month" claim is borderline farce.

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