The NYT home page has a set of links below it's piece on Obama in Afghanistan, entitled "White House Mistake Calls Attention" to "Report That Iraqi Backs Obama Plan". The first part of the line (White House Mistake Calls Attention) links to the afternoon article about the White's house's goof-up and quotes al-Maliki's pertinent statements. The second part (Report That Iraqi Backs Obama Plan) links to the 6:28 update with extensive reporting on the interview, Obama's response, and includes links to Der Spiegel and a later update with the following comment by Dr. Ali al-Dabbagh, who apparently did some frantic cutting and pasting from Bush talking points to create a one-sentence masterpiece of political backpedalling:

Al-Dabbagh explained that Mr. al-Maliki confirmed the existence of an Iraqi vision stems from the reality with regard to Iraq security needs, as the positive developments of the security situation and the improvement witnessed in Iraqi cities makes the subject of U.S. forces’ withdrawal within prospects, horizons and timetables agreed upon and in the light of the continuing positive developments on the ground, and security that came within the Strategic Plan for Cooperation which was laid and developed by Mr. Maliki and President George Bush.

What happened to impartiality in writing the news? The NYT and WaPo are as bad as Faux News

Oh, and the day (or 2 days?) after the WaPo's lead editorial was about how naive Obama is re: his withdrawal plan, I'm far from shocked that they are downplaying this story.

This is obviously a big story (huger than huge as Josh said). There is something I noticed about the NY Times many years back and that is when there is a major change in the narrative (the collapse of the Shah's regime in 1979 is when I first noticed it) they can be maddenly slow in recognizing the change. They specialize in defining the narrative, but are not so good at identifying those cusps when new narratives are being created.

Now this is a change that means Obama's vision for the future is becoming the new narrative. How can any paper that is dedicated to "balance", accept what just last week was just a partisan position as the new reality? It is great for us, in any case. However, I just would not expect either the Times or the Post to recognize or admit to this for a while yet.

Wait!, you mean the Liberal Media isn't trumpeting Maliki's alignment with Obama all over their front pages???

The world gets curiouser and curiouser.

now it's "he said/centcom said"

the spin and attempts at spin on this one range from the blatantly desperate to the not-so subtle.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Maliki's remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately." We have yet to hear specifically what it was that was mistranslated, and der Spiegel stands by the story.

slightly more interesting is how CNN is doing their part. at 2:58pm EST Sunday it's still up on their homepage as "Iraqi PM quoted as backing Obama's plan." when you click on the link, the headline changes to "Iraqi PM disputes report on withdrawal plan."

more disturbing is the third entry in the 'story highlights' at the top which reads: "Comments follow White House announcement of "time horizon" for withdrawal." now that's our boys workin the spinner alright. glad they finally caught up!
you see, Maliki wasn't really harpooning the whole McBush agenda while simultaneously agreeing with the assessment of Obama. Since the derSpeigel article didn't make news until saturday he was actually expressing his appreciation that Bush and McCain had won the war for us (as we were told on FRIDAY) which of course means we can think of starting to think of bringing some of our troops home maybe sometime out on the "horizon."
so you see this proves that Bush and McCain were right all along, and Obama's plan for an unconditional surrender was just dangerously foolish and had nothing to do with us winning.
i know it sounds crazy, but my guess is that by tuesday you'll have seen and heard a lot of it.
unless of course britney gets another weird haircut.

Al Maliki's comment is perfectly in keeping with Iraqi public opinion. Hard as it may be to believe given our news sources, the Iraqis want us out.

Iraq may not be much, but it is theirs, not ours. Your average Iraqi knows this and doesn't want foreigners riding around in MRAPS running the country. Really.

My wonder is not the comment, but why it seems so surprising over here. When was the last time you heard an Iraqi notable suggest that a hundred year occupation would be a good thing?

This is inevitable, and yes, it pops John McCain's balloon, as it should. Obama will be the next president, and I for one can only hope this definitively turns the page on the Bush era.

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