Iraq

Update: 1:25 pm The McCain campaign issued a statement yesterday regarding the gaffe itself, but did not address the CBS edit. Until now: (via email)

Tommy Christopher: CBS did not air the response to Katie Couric's question about the Anbar Awakening, matching it instead with another of Senator McCain's responses. Was this edit performed at the request of anyone in or connected to the Senator's campaign?

Tucker Bounds: no

CBS News issued the following statement to me, via email:

As all news organizations do with extended interviews, last night's Obama and McCain interviews were edited to fit the available time and to give the viewers a fair expression of the candidates' major differences. The full transcript and video were and still are available at cbsnews.com

.

Well, that was worth the wait. My questions to them were whether the McCain campaign had requested the cut, and would they be running a correction on the evening news?

This non-explanation holds no water. You don't cut the gaffe answer to one question, and replace it with the answer to a completely different question. One could hardly be blamed for thinking CBS was trying to pay the GOP back for the Bush Air National Guard story.


John McCain did an interview with CBS News, in which he made a serious error in describing the timing of the Sunni Awakening. The interview aired last night on the CBS Evening News. Well, an interview aired. Just not that one.

Keith Olbermann pointed out the discrepancy on MSNBC's Countdown. Here's Keith's report, followed by my own reporting, including a curious memo from the McCain campaign from yesterday, entitled, "BARACK OBAMA VS. CBS ON THE SURGE."

Wow, I mean just... wow:

What is the word you use to cover a situation where a politician freely admits that they took a position that was not the right thing to do just to win an election. Somehow "gaffe" doesn't quite stretch to fit... Obviously this will cause some teeth gnashing on the right, but little else of effect, because Iraq is off the table, it's summer and most normal Americans are not paying attention/don't care enough yet.

RCP has the hard poll numbers to back this up:

MI: Economy 56, Iraq 18
CO: Economy 47, Iraq 19
MN: Economy 51, Iraq 21
WI Economy 50, Iraq 20

It's the economy, stupid. Best case scenario for the GOP; this could add to the perception that Obama is a speechmaker extroardinaire, and little else.

Tip to RedState, and I have to agree, if I were ABC, I would be nervous about getting left behind on the trip back.

The McCain campaign released a memo today regarding what it considers the first mistake of Barack Obama's overseas trip.

We have a lot of work to do. It's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.

Wait, sorry, that's not it. That was McCain on Good Morning, America, right before he called for more military aid from Czechoslovakia, and predicted a World Series victory for the St. Louis Browns.

Ahh, here's Obama's monumental blunder:

"...Barack Obama made the first mistake of his trip, in my judgment, in releasing a statement in which he said exactly what Maliki had said in those conversations. We have a long tradition in this country that we only have one president at a time. He's the commander in chief and the negotiator in chief. I cannot remember a campaign which a rival seeking the presidency has been in a position negotiating a war that's under way with another party outside the country." -- David Gergen

Wow, that's devastating. Barack Obama is acting too much like a President! Even if it were true, why would you want to call attention to it, and to the fact that Obama has made no other mistakes on his trip? "Alex Rodriquez really blew it, his 3rd home run of the game was to right field!"

As it turns out, Gergen's logic is faulty, his facts are wrong, and he ends up praising Obama with faint damnation.

There are three competing translations of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's now infamous remarks to the German magazine Der Spiegel about the potential withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. David Knowles provides the New York Times' version.

"Obama's remarks that-if he takes office-in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq."

He continued: "Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq."

That's hardly an unqualified endorsement, as was reported by the magazine and breathlessly trumpeted by the American left and mainstream press. Maliki's words seem to be the very carefully chosen words of a man hedging his bet. In other words, on the eve of a visit to his country by the potential next president of the nation that has sacrificed over 4,000 soldiers for its freedom and currently has 150,000 soldiers guarding that freedom, Maliki decided to pay a Sen. Obama's withdrawal plan a compliment. That's good politics in any part of the world.

But a truer picture of Maliki's position on the presence of U.S. troops can be found in his actions. The Bush Administration, and Senator McCain, have long said that U.S. troops would leave Iraq when the Iraqis ask them to. Maliki, the leader of a Shiite political party officially opposed to the U.S presence, has been calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq since before he became prime minister. Still, Iraq has not yet asked the United States to leave.

As was artfully covered by my colleague Mark Impomeni, the Bush Administration's "third way" in Iraq, "a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals" (I think that was one of my performance objectives for my day job) has raised some questions about how a "time horizon" is different from a "timeline".

The author of this stirring prose must have been a project manager in a prior life. This PMO term is defined as "A time horizon, also known as a planning horizon, is a fixed point of time in the future at which point certain processes will be evaluated or assumed to end. It is necessary in an accounting, finance or risk management regime to assign such a fixed horizon time so that alternatives can be evaluated for performance over the same period of time".

Now remember that a timeline is very bad and a time horizon is very good. Now on to the giggles from Scarborough and crowd, to the dismay of former Bush admin Secretary of State Andrew Card. The fun starts about 2 minutes in.

Much has been made as to what, exactly, Nuri Al-Maliki said, or didn't say regarding Barack Obama's plan for a 16-month withdrawal from Iraq. Yes, indeed, this is a story with a few twists and turns. First came the story in Germany's Der Spiegel. Then came a wave of stories about that story. Then came a "clarification" issued by an Iraqi government spokesman. Then came a wave of stories about the clarification. Then came word that the Bush Administration had put pressure on the Maliki government to produce the "clarification." Then came a wave of stories on the pressure applied to get the clarification.

Well, today The New York Times has been provided a copy of the actual interview audio from Der Speigel. Noting that "the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki's office, not the magazine" (Der Spiegel), The Times included the disputed section in a story today. It reads:

"Obama's remarks that-if he takes office-in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq."

He continued: "Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq."

So what's the long and short of all of this? First, Maliki did endorse Obama's withdrawal plan as being the one closest to what he'd like to see implemented. Second, the damage control story put forth by the White House, and the Iraqi government spokesperson-stating that the tape was not translated correctly, and that Maliki's words had been taken out of context-is false. The translator of Maliki's remarks works for Maliki, not Der Spiegel.

Bottom line: Iraq's Prime Minister thinks Obama has a better timetable, and a "better assessment of the situation in Iraq" than does John McCain.

Should foreign governments offer opinions on which candidate they prefer? No. And that's partially why Iraq has tried to dial back the story a bit. But even today, they continue to put out the signal that they want a speedy exit of U.S. troops that is closer to Obama's vision. Given that Maliki has moved in Obama's direction, and that even George W, Bush has now endorsed the "Time Horizon" for withdrawing troops, some wonder if John McCain isn't suddenly the "odd man out."

Maliki and Obama are meeting today in Iraq. I wonder if this matter will happen to come up in conversation.

The German magazine Der Spiegel sent the mainstream media and the American left into a tizzy this weekend when it reported that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. At first glance, the story seemed like a shot to the ribs of the McCain campaign, which has worked hard to gain the public's trust on the issue of the war in Iraq and national security in general. The trouble for the media, and Obama supporters, is that there was no Maliki endorsement.

A spokesman in the Prime Minister's office disputed the magazine's characterization of Maliki's remarks, calling them, "misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately." Ali al-Dabbagh said that rather than an arbitrary timeline, such as the 16 months that Sen. Obama supports, conditions on the ground would dictate the pace of American troop withdrawals. He also said that the continuance of security improvements in Iraq would be a necessary precondition of any troop drawdown.

Maliki's comments come in advance of Obama's visit to Iraq, and in that context, are really not surprising. Maliki has domestic political considerations of his own, and as a consequence, has long been calling for a diminishing U.S. presence in Iraq. That is the popular position in Iraq. He also knows that he may well have a President Obama to deal with in a few months. So paying a lip service compliment to Obama's plan was also a wise political move. But the reality is that Iraqi security forces, though vastly improved thanks to the troop surge, are not yet ready to handle the day-to-day security responsibilities in the country. Until they are, the U.S. must stay as their back-up and support. This is the reason that Maliki's office was so swift to correct the record.

Is the GOP losing the military to rock star Obama? That would be the worry from articles written like this:

A group soldiers serving overseas, including some from the Chicago area, were overjoyed Saturday when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama visited in Kuwait.

As CBS 2's Susan Carlson reports, Obama stopped in at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait before making his first trip to Afghanistan. Camp Arifjan is a major gateway for U.S. soldiers moving into and out of Iraq.

The soldiers applauded thunderously when Obama arrived; one of them could barely contain herself as she sported a Chi-town sign.

When the cheers settled down, the first thing Obama said to the soldiers was, "Thank you."

I would be ok with that. The short term advantage of having a military on your side of political issues would be outweighed by the long term damage to the Republic of seeing the military as excessively partisan. Better that all parties in a Democracy see the military as belonging to the country as a whole and be respectful of the job they do as professionals.

But a closer look at the youtube video below, I can't help but think something else is at play in the overjoyed response.

Yes it appears from this video anyway that Obama's biggest supporters appear to be African-American*, a point that may have been overlooked in the original article. I don't want to underestimate the importance of that support, especially given how it carried him in the primary, but it's probably not the sort of thing that moves elections or drastically changes the political relationships of the military.

*I understand that merely noticing this makes me a racist in the eyes of the Obamaniacs.

David Knowles reported earlier that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki endorsed Barack Obama's plans for Iraq, but he had some unexpected help in getting the message out: The White House. From ABC's Political Punch:

The White House this afternoon accidentally sent to its extensive distribution list a Reuters story headlined "Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine."

...The White House employee had intended to send the article to an internal distribution list, ABC News' Martha Raddatz reports, but hit the wrong button.

I guess if someone in the White House is going to hit the wrong button, this is the one to hit.

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor gleefully forwarded the report of the White House gaffe to its press distribution list.

Earlier today, the campaign sent this statement on Maliki's endorsement, from Susan Rice:

Here's the quote that's sure to make ripples in the American political pond:

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Who said it? Iraq's Prime MInister, Nuri al-Maliki. What was the context? An interview with Germany's popular magazine Der Spiegel. This can't be what John McCain wants to hear, especially with Obama about to arrive in Iraq, and then make his way to Germany. It's just more evidence of how McCain's dare is about to backfire. More Maliki:

"The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn't."

Here's the Obama campaign's response, as delivered by Susan Rice:

"Senator Obama welcomes Prime Minister Malaki's support of a 16 month timeline for the redeployment of U.S. combat brigades. This represents an important opportunity to transition to Iraq responsibility, while restoring our military and increasing our commitment to finish the fight in Afghanistan."