Todd Gitlin notes the major papers' rather reticent response to al Maliki's Der Spiegel interview.

Todd wrote about three hours ago. As of just before midnight, as far as I can tell, the Post relegates the story to two paragraphs near the top of the paper's story about Obama's trip to Afghanistan. The article returns to the topic and provides some elaboration at the end. The Times gives the story almost the identical treatment -- a short reference below the lede and returned to at the end of the piece.

The most credulous take I've seen so far is CNN's which all but takes al Dabbagh's 'translation error' explanation at face value.

Let me know what write-ups you're seeing.

Late Update: I'm not sure precisely what it 'means'. But in scanning around the major news sites I'm noticing that the better coverage of this story seems to be in the big papers' blogs rather than in their front page stories -- most of which are now out on the websites.

I try to learn as much as I can about foreign cultures. And I'm learning that it's very difficult to translate the nuances of the Arabic of Iraqi leaders when they're speaking at variance with the talking points of the Bush White House. Language is a funny thing.

Along those lines, Dr. Ali al-Dabbagh, who the Times calls a spokesman for the Iraqi government, has released a statement saying that Prime Minister Maliki's statement was "misunderstood and mistranslated" and "not conveyed accurately regarding the vision of Senator Barack Obama, U.S. presidential candidate, on the timeframe for U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq." But as the Times notes al Dabbagh did not specify what had been mistranslated.

Another interesting detail, noted by the Times. al-Dabbagh's statement was released by CentCom. I do not know how often Iraqi government statements are released by CentCom.

In any case, here's the rest of al-Dabbagh's 'clarification' ...

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. The Iraqi government appreciates and values the efforts of all the friends who continue to support and supporting Iraqi security forces.

Al-Dabbagh underscored that the statements made by the head of the ministerial council (Prime Minister al-Maliki) or any of the members of the Iraqi government should not be understood as support to any U.S. presidential candidates.

Late Update: CNN plays it pretty straightforwardly as a mistranslation. Considerably more credulous than the Times.

TPM Reader RD has a good question some of the more pliant journos would do well to consider ...

I take it from watching the news and reading the coverage of the campaign that Obama's a big fat flip-flopper.

But it makes me wonder... At this point, is there any significant policy position that John McCain currently holds, on any topic, that he's consistently held over the past 10 years? I mean that as a serious question. On economics, foreign policy, environmental policy, immigration, the role of evangelicals, you name it, it's hard for me to pin down. I guess maybe on free trade?

The McCain campaign has just come out with their response to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki's endorsement of Obama's withdrawal plan. I think the clotted, dodging-the-issue nature of the response communicates very clearly the box this has placed the McCain camp in.

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, McCain 2008 Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Randy Scheunemann issued the following statement:

"The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama is that Barack Obama advocates an unconditional withdrawal that ignores the facts on the ground and the advice of our top military commanders. John McCain believes withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground. Prime Minister Maliki has repeatedly affirmed the same view, and did so again today. Timing is not as important as whether we leave with victory and honor, which is of no apparent concern to Barack Obama. The fundamental truth remains that Senator McCain was right about the surge and Senator Obama was wrong. We would not be in the position to discuss a responsible withdrawal today if Senator Obama's views had prevailed."

Got that? Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Set aside for the moment that McCain doesn't believe in withdrawal at all. Scheunemann is betting on our believing that Maliki himself doesn't know what he means.

Late Update: CNN has finally picked up the Maliki statement story. There's some effort to play it down but there's only so much you can. It will be particularly interesting to see the response of the jejune Washington Post OpEd page.

Here's the full TPMtv interview with Speaker Pelosi down at Netroots Nation (see this clip for Pelosi's comments on President Bush's "Time Horizon" for withdrawal from Iraq).

David presses Speaker Pelosi on FISA. Take a look ...

To comment on this interview, click here.

I've spent a couple hours now trying to process the probable impact of Prime Minister al Maliki's explicit endorsement of Barack Obama's 16 month timetable for withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. My first instinct is always to try not to overstate the impact of momentary developments. But I don't think it's enough to say this is a huge development. It's huger than that. In a stroke, I think, al Maliki has cut McCain off at the knees in a way I'm not sure his campaign strategy can recover from.

Consider McCain's strategy, which is all bound up with Iraq.

All understand it is a given that the war is unpopular and that the vast majority of Americans want out as soon as possible. The big of wiggle room is just what's 'possible.' McCain has invested his entire campaign in support for the purportedly nascent Iraqi democracy al Maliki represents and the claim that Obama's support for a timetable for withdrawal irresponsibly risks losing the gains we've achieved and giving Iraq back to al Qaeda.

Here, with a brush of the hand and in so many words, al Maliki says, "No, we're good."

What exactly is McCain to say to that? He can hardly turn against Maliki or say he doesn't have a feel of the situation on the ground.

What's more, he's given Obama want amounts to a potent new talking point by defining American redeployment out of Iraq as 'victory'. Says 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."

I don't doubt that the McCain will come up with some pat response, though their silence so far does signal the difficulty of coming up with it. But McCain's campaign has been almost entirely dedicated to raising doubts about a withdrawal strategy the great majority would like to embrace. And Maliki has now handed Obama the trump card of all trump cards with which to parry all of McCain's attacks.

I would not discount the possibility that the White House will muscle Maliki into a retraction of some sort. But I think it will be difficult for that to seem to be anything other than what it is. What he said pre-waterboarding will always appear more genuine than whatever statement came later. McCain may also say that his 'surge' strategy is what made all this possible. But fundamentally that's not a point Obama is arguing. The debate is about whether or not to leave. And on that count, Maliki has now placed McCain is an extremely precarious position.

Ouch. This should sure make the next round of negotiations between Bush and Maliki a lot of fun. The German magazine Spiegel interviewed Iraqi Prime Minister al Maliki who said that he supports Obama's 16 month timetable approach.

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

The Obama campaign's Susan Rice just put out this statement crowing thanking Maliki for his support of the plan ...

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

Maliki went on to say:

"Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business," he said. But then, apparently referring to Republican candidate John McCain's more open-ended Iraq policy, Maliki said: "Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems."

Do keep an eye out for some 'clarifications' of Maliki's stance. But as much as I suspect that this is a genuine characterization of Maliki's views, we should not discount that his willingness to say this is also a recognition of the way the winds are blowing.

As you know, David Kurtz and Ben Craw are doing a slew of interviews this weekend at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin. We've got a bunch of headliner interviews lined-up. But for my part I'm just as interested in the interviewers we're doing with candidates from around the country. By and large these interviews aren't going to generate big headlines. But they're candidates who's names you may have heard but who you likely don't know too much about.

So in many ways these are the interviews I'm most interested in seeing. It's a good opportunity to get a sense of who they are and take their measure. .

Here's an interview we did with Jeff Merkley, who's running for senate this year out in Oregon against Gordon Smith (R). So far it's looking like a tight race ...

See the rest of our interviews at TPMtv.com.

Just out from the McCain campaign ...

ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm issued the following statement:

"It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country. That kind of distraction hurts not only Senator McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems, it hurts the country. To end this distraction and get on with the real debate, I hereby step down as Co-Chair of the McCain Campaign and join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters."

But is he still an advisor?

Late Update: It's like parody. Seems he will still be advising McCain.

TPM's David Kurtz and Ben Craw have done and are doing a string of great interviews from the Netroots Nation conference in Austin. And you can see all of them at the TPMtv website.

Any thoughts on the reaction if Barack Obama had publicly broken the embargo on details and timing of Sen. McCain's imminent visit to a war zone?

It's that time of year.

TPM brings on a new class of interns each season. And we're now taking applications for our Fall 2008 cycle. TPM interns are probably as intimately and rapidly involved in the preparation and production of news coverage as interns at any other news organization. And that ranges from work on the news section of the front page to research for our news blogs to video editing to bylined articles. Needless to say, this fall is going to have no shortage of political news. The application deadline is July 25th. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

This is the lead on a story just out over the Reuters wire ...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Friday that his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, is likely to be in Iraq over the weekend.

The Obama campaign has tried to cloak the Illinois senator's trip in some measure of secrecy for security reasons. The White House, State Department and Pentagon do not announce senior officials' visits to Iraq in advance.

"I believe that either today or tomorrow -- and I'm not privy to his schedule -- Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators" who make up a congressional delegation, McCain told a campaign fund-raising luncheon.

The Reuters piece hints at it. But if Obama is going to be in Iraq this weekend, this is a major breach on McCain's part. As a knowledgeable insider notes ...

If it is true that Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, it is a very serious mistake for McCain to have disclosed it publically. Even for run-of-the-mill CODELs the military gives guidance like, "Please strongly discourage Congressional offices from issuing press releases prior to their trips which mention their intent to travel to the AOR and/or the dates of that travel or their scheduled meetings. Such releases are a serious compromise to OPSEC." If Obama is going to Iraq this weekend, I can not begin to imagine how much this is complicating the security planning for the trip.

It's known that Obama is leaving on his foreign trip this weekend and the Journal OpEd page this morning said that Obama could arrive in Iraq "as early as this weekend." And with a slew of reporters in tow, it's not exactly highly classified information. But there is a reason definite information about these sorts of trips aren't released in advance.

Hypothetically, maybe McCain was just guessing. But even so it would still be a serious lapse of judgment on his part.

We're seeing what more we can find out.

As you know, I occasionally do posts suggesting taunting that newspaper beat reporters recognize a campaign trend that hasn't yet distilled into the media narrative. But here I think the trend is becoming so unmistakable that I'm really starting to wonder.

Over the last ten days or so, the President and the McCain campaign (who are clearly working in coordination, as they're entirely entitled to do) have been systematically drawing back from their positions on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran and either fully embracing or moving toward those held for some time by Barack Obama.

Let's run the list.

McCain and now the White House (via the DOD) are moving toward more US troops in Afghanistan -- a position they've each long opposed and which Obama has been on record in support of for at least a year.

Bush and McCain have each also in different ways tried to nudge closer to Obama's position on withdrawing troops from Iraq. The key shoe falling today is President Bush's embrace of a "time horizon" for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Meanwhile, McCain's declaration of military victory in Iraq seems very much like an effort to get people thinking the troops are coming home soon within the conceptual architecture of his professed goals in Iraq.

And finally Iran. I'm not certain what McCain himself has said about Iran in recent days. But over recent months a key line of attack from the president and John McCain has been that Obama is a latter-day Neville Chamberlain for saying we should negotiate with Iran. And now over recent days we've learned that the White House is sending one of its top diplomats to negotiate directly with Iran's nuclear negotiator. And there are growing signs the White House is poised to open a diplomatic interests section (an unofficial diplomatic outpost) in Tehran.

In the case of Iran, the flashpoint has been meetings between heads of state. So there's not a direct equation. And McCain's and Bush's supporters can still point to this as the bright line they have not and will not cross.

But when the spin is wiped away, for all the scrutiny and hand-wringing about the nuances about Obama's 16 months, there's simply no denying that all the real movement at this point in the campaign shows Bush/McCain trying to nudge closer to the ground Obama already holds.

Ok, another turn of the story. Earlier we noted Bob Novak's (who whatever else you might think of him is very wired on these types of stories) report that after a few days in the dog house, John McCain has forgiven Phil Gramm and welcomed him back on board the campaign as his top economics advisor and media surrogate. Now The Politico's Jonathan Martin has gotten comment from McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, who partially disputes Novak's story.

What Bounds says is that Gramm is out as surrogate. It's only his role as advisor that is continuing.

In other words, McCain will still rely Gramm's advice but the campaign has decided it's not a good idea to let Gramm out in public to let people get an idea of what kind of advice he's giving him.

Seems like a wise plan.

As you know, we've been reporting for more than a year on the multiple public corruption scandals engulfing Sen. Ted Stevens (R) of Alaska. And Mark Begich, Mayor of Anchorage, is running against Stevens this year and in a pretty tight race. TPM's David Kurtz caught up with Begich at Netroots Nation and did his best to draw Begich out on Stevens's bottomless barrel of political muck ...

It took a few days but it appears that John McCain has now welcomed back Phil Gramm as top economics advisor and surrogate.

From Robert Novak ...

After Sen. John McCain publicly repudiated his close friend and adviser Phil Gramm's comments about a "nation of whiners" and a "mental recession," the two old political comrades patched up their relationship.

Gramm apologized to McCain for his remarks that gave Democrats an opening against the Republican presidential candidate and provided several days of ammunition for blogs, cable television and radio talk shows. McCain told Gramm not to worry about the expected pitfalls of a campaign surrogate. Gramm will continue as an adviser and surrogate.

It seems that the White House is now bowing to a heavily coded timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq. In a White House statement just released, we have this ...

In the area of security cooperation, the President and the Prime Minister agreed that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals -- such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. The President and Prime Minister agreed that the goals would be based on continued improving conditions on the ground and not an arbitrary date for withdrawal.

Keep an eye out here for a concerted Bush-McCain push to take Iraq off the table for the election. They declare victory, say we'll be out in no time. So what's to argue about?

Here's another excerpt from one of our interviews at Netroots Nation. Here retired Gen. Wesley Clark discusses the darkening situation in Afghanistan ...

McCain: Obama an extremist and possibly a socialist. Check out this video at about 2:30 from the end of the clip.

Also note the portion about McCain's changed position on the Bush tax cuts in which he just lied through his teeth about his own record. He never gets called on this sort of stuff.

If you just say up is down people don't know what to make of it.

They say that John McCain doesn't know a lot about economics. Not having a ready grasp of the interaction between a weakening dollar and oil futures or the rippling effect of the credit crunch. But if that's true, where does he come up with innovative big think like this?

In response to the worsening economic situation, he's got a new plan: extend his bogus gas tax holiday a few more months.

Sen. Larry Craig throws innuendo to the wind ...

Just as I eventually decided not to ask Michael Bloomberg to buy me my own private island in the Caribbean, Mitt Romney has now decided not to ask voters to donate money to help repay him the $45 million he loaned to his own failed campaign.

Ashcroft at Committee Hearing: My inability to distinguish between what happened and what I've been told may make my testimony unreliable.

As many of you know, the 3rd annual Netroots Nation conference (formerly YearlyKos) gets underway this afternoon in Austin, Texas. And TPM is going to be there in force bringing you live coverage on the blog and in video. We've already got a lot of interviews lined up over the next four days -- Nancy Pelosi, Don Siegelman, Darcy Burner, Wes Clark and others. But if there are others there -- politicians, bloggers, candidates, activists -- who you think we should interview for TPMtv, let us know now. Send us an email with the subject heading "Interview" to our comments email address at the upper right.

I'm always highly skeptical of the what I read in the British press, especially when it has to do with the US. But the Guardian's fairly reliable and they're reporting that US is planning to announce in the next month that we'll be opening a diplomatic interests section in Iran. That means basically a de facto diplomatic outpost without having formal diplomatic relations. I believe we already have one in Havana.

Nonetheless this would be a further sign of a dramatic shift in the US stance toward Tehran.

Will be interesting to see if the report bears out. I'm skeptical; but let's see.

McCain camps unveils new strategy of aggressive whining about coverage of Obama's foreign trip. From the NYT ...

The extraordinary coverage of Obama's trip reflects how the candidate remains an object of fascination in the news media, a built-in feature of being the first African-American presidential nominee for a major political party and a relative newcomer to the national stage.

But the coverage also feeds into concerns in McCain's campaign, and among Republicans in general, that the media is imbalanced in their coverage of the candidates, just as aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton felt during the primary season.

"It is unproductive to spend it worrying about the way Obama is covered," said Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for McCain. "That being said, it certainly hasn't escaped us that the three network newscasts will originate from stops on Obama's trip next week."

News executives say they generally devote the same resources to the candidates. But they do not dispute that Obama has received more coverage this year, not only because of the historic nature of his campaign and his newness to the political scene relative to McCain, but also because of the protracted nature of his primary battle with Clinton, which was at a peak when McCain last went to Iraq.

First McCain wanted Obama to go to Iraq; now he's complaining that people care more about Obama's trip than his dog-and-pony show last spring. I think the American people have to admit that they're biased against John McCain.

Let's be honest. Hardly anyone cares about McCain or his campaign. No one's excited about it in any way. I don't think that's an overstatement. Caring or being excited about isn't the same as supporting. Lots of people support McCain -- but as the anti-Obama, the alternative. This isn't to say he can't win; he definitely can. But very little of this campaign is about him. Virtually all of it is about Barack Obama.

Joe Lieberman opens up about not having any friends.

A very helpful and detailed documentation of McCain's decision to embrace Obama's position on Afghanistan.

They say that everything that's old will one day be new again. And in a similar vein eventually I knew Mitt Romney would be in the news again, notwithstanding his ignominious and deeply unfortunate campaign implosion last winter. But now in an effort to get picked as McCain's veep, Mitt's back on the airwaves with more vintage nonsense. And it also dovetails nicely with the escalating cult of personality over McCain and the 'Surge'. So here's Mitt saying not only did McCain support the surge. He actually invented the concept. McCain "authored the philosophy" of the surge, saith the Mittman ...

I think TPM was one of the first places to note that what most of the media was playing as McCain calling for an Afghanistan Surge (TM) today was actually his abandoning his position and adopting the position Obama's been pushing for a year. Even Mark Halperin eventually caught on. But it's hard to keep your record of being ahead of curve.

Now I see this post from my old pal Juliet Eilperin who reports at the Post's Trail blog that just after giving his speech adopting Obama's Afghanistan policy, McCain hopped on the Straight Talk Express (TM) and changed his position again. After telling the crowd in Albuquerque that he would send three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, that he might get NATO to supply the additional troops instead. "We need to work that out, we need to have greater participation from our NATO allies, and we need a lot more help from our NATO allies," said McCain.

Now, as we noted, he may have switched his position because the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs recently said that while we need additional troops in Afghanistan we can't send any because they'd have to come from Iraq.

A short time after that McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace said that some of the additional brigades would be NATO troops and some American.

I'd almost forgotten that top McCain economics advisor Phil Gramm's only real experience in the non-influence-peddling part of the private sector was as an investor in a 70s soft-core porn movie.

Not that there's anything wrong that ...

From the AP ...

In a break with past Bush administration policy, a top U.S. diplomat will for the first time join colleagues from other world powers at a meeting with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, The Associated Press has learned.

William Burns, America's third highest-ranking diplomat, will attend talks with the Iranian envoy, Saeed Jalili, in Switzerland on Saturday aimed at persuading Iran to halt activities that could lead to the development of atomic weapons, a senior U.S. official told the AP on Tuesday.

Official contacts between Iran and the United States are extremely rare and although Washington is part of a six-nation effort to get Iran to stop enriching and reprocessing uranium, the administration has shunned contacts with Tehran on the matter.

Stephen Payne, GOP lobbyist and Bush pal who only a few days ago could have arranged your visit with Vice President Cheney, gets canned by the Department of Homeland Security.

Can we fight al Qaeda, which is in Pakistan, better by fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan? (Scratch chin.)

Here I think is an example of news judgment within the DC bell jar.

As I noted below, the 'news' today, as in things that have happened today and are newsworthy, is the fact that John McCain has dropped his position on Afghanistan and embraced the one Obama has been pushing for the last year. (As a secondary matter, we can note that McCain doesn't have the troops for his new position because they're tied down in Iraq. But let's not expect too much.)

And look at the headline at Mark Halperin's The Page: "Obama Acknowledges "Shift in Emphasis" on Issues."

And here's Halperin's gloss on McCain's new Afghanistan strategy: McCain "highlights the success of the surge (and Obama's opposition to it), says the troop increase strategies used in Iraq should also be applied to Afghanistan."

It's almost comical. It doesn't fit the script so it didn't happen.

Late Update: Okay, it's 7:27 PM. And Halperin now has a headline noting that McCain is "supposedly adopting Obama's position on troops in Afghanistan." The key though is that the headline is prompted by an email the Obama campaign sent out to reporters at 6:41 PM (yeah, we got it too.) Did I mention it's only "supposedly"?

This isn't getting much notice but it deserves your attention. The senate is currently debating the reauthorization of PEPFAR, the omnibus AIDS prevention and treatment legislation. This reauthorization also includes a repeal of a travel ban on people with HIV. Basically, people with HIV can't visit the United States and they can't become citizens if they're here. Since the US doesn't require HIV tests for foreign travelers, obviously, a lot of people can slip through unnoticed. But it's a ban that affects a lot of people and one which we share with a handful of the world's dictatorships and authoritarian regimes like Sudan, Russia, Libya and Saudi Arabia.

The law was the product of ignorance and prejudice when it was first enacted in 1993. And there's no reason to keep it on the books now.

But apparently two senators -- Sessions of Alabama and Vitter of Louisiana (who of course we know is a serial user of prostitutes, so maybe he should get tested himself) -- have put holds on the legislation. So they need 60 votes to override their objection. The vote may come as soon as today. If you're from those states it's worth making your voices heard on this one. And if you're not from Alabama or Louisiana, see whether your senators are willing to vote to override the hold and let us know what you hear.

Is everybody missing this? That McCain is now trying to catch up to Obama on Afghanistan? In fact, he's now adopting Obama's position.

Obama has been saying for almost a year that more troops are needed in Afghanistan. McCain has said that wasn't the case, that Iraq was the central battleground in the war on terror. Moreover, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says that we need more troops in Afghanistan but we none are available unless we pull substantial numbers out of Iraq -- which McCain is ruling out.

So let's all say it out loud: McCain is now copying Obama's position on Afghanistan.

And with troops that he doesn't have since he's against pulling any out of Iraq.

With all the hullabaloo today about Barack Obama's position on Iraq (and whether he'll promise to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months, or set that as a goal, etc.) it would seem that McCain campaign has again successively deflected attention from the fact that McCain's goal is to station American troops in Iraq permanently. His policy is not one of refusing to set arbitrary timelines or keeping in touch with commanders on the ground or members of the Iraqi government. Those are all obfuscations -- a continuation of the one used by President Bush for five years. The choice is still stark -- leave Iraq or stay in Iraq, and the very different foreign policy visions which inevitably grow from each decision. Any reporting that fails to confront this point is ... a failure, and a cave to McCain who knows his position is deeply unpopular.

I'm kind of curious whether it makes sense for the Washington Post to refer to Mike O'Hanlon as a "Democratic defense analyst" anymore when his main agenda these days seems to be lashing out at Democrats for not forgetting that he's gotten virtually everything wrong about Iraq. Here's his snippet today in the Post ...

Republicans were not alone in that response. Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, said he could not believe that Obama would put such a definitive timeline into print before a trip to Iraq, where he is to consult with Iraqi leaders and U.S. commanders.

"To say you're going to get out on a certain schedule -- regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground -- is the height of absurdity," said O'Hanlon, who described himself as "livid." "I'm not going to go to the next level of invective and say he shouldn't be president. I'll leave that to someone else."

A few more points. Can we knock down the idea that dog-n-pony shows in the country in question are really the be-all and end-all of major policy making? And with his record over the last seven years, can someone pull O'Hanlon's license to use the word 'absurd' or any other derivative words.

Replace Iraq/Afghanistan war czar with separate war czars for each country -- just now in his war policy speech.

From UPI ...

Homeland Security officials are looking into allegations that a member of the department's advisory council offered to arrange meetings with senior administration officials in exchange for a large donation to the Bush presidential library.

Stephen Payne, a major GOP fundraiser and international affairs lobbyist, also touted his success in getting an Uzbek opposition leader removed from the U.S. terrorist watch list and issued a U.S. visa.

"This is a horribly unfortunate story," said Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner. "We are looking into the facts." She declined to comment further.

It's that time of year.

TPM brings on a new class of interns each season. And we're now taking applications for our Fall 2008 cycle. TPM interns are probably as intimately and rapidly involved in the preparation and production of news coverage as interns at any other news organization. And that ranges from work on the news section of the front page to research for our news blogs to video editing to bylined articles. Needless to say, this fall is going to have no shortage of political news. The application deadline is July 25th. To find out details for how to apply, click here.

Rasmussen has Franken pulling ahead of Coleman in Minnesota. Just by a tad, mind you -- 44% - 42%. But I can't think of the last poll that didn't have Coleman beating Al.

Earlier today we noted the possible role of AP Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier is turning the AP's campaign coverage into complete crap. Now from the just released Tillman Report, it seems Fournier was also one of the reporters exchanging emails the day of Tillman's death with Karl Rove of all people -- and according to the report at least, offering advice on how to handle the story. "Keep up the fight," Fournier tells Rove.

You may have seen the article over the weekend alleging that a high-flying lobbyist was hawking White House meetings with administration bigwigs in exchange for donations to the Bush library. White House press secretary Dana Perino got a chance to deny the allegations and served up this pretty weak denial ...

Late Update: President Bush has longstanding ties with the lobbyist-cum-consultant caught on video, as Andrew Tilghman reports.

Courtesy of TPM Reader PD, McCain Iraq spokesman Randy Scheunemann appearing as Ahmad Chalabi's defender on the PBS Newshour back in May 2003.

As you can see, the McCain campaign is moving ahead with a new stab-in-the-back style attack on Obama over Iraq. But as Team McCain is raising the volume on these slash-and-burn style attacks, it's time for some coverage of the guy who's McCain's brain on Iraq. Remember, McCain's pitch on Iraq is that he was a critic of Bush, not a supporter, on the poor decisions and lies that got us into the current mess. In the McCain paradigm, he starts fresh with the 'surge'. That's where he takes ownership, as it were, of Iraq.

But look who's advising him on Iraq, who's crafting Iraq policy. That would be Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy advisor. And he's the guy who today accused Barack Obama of wanting to lead America to defeat in Iraq for political gain.

Scheunemann was a core participant in the lobbying, plotting and organized campaigns of deception that led America to war in Iraq. He was a close collaborator with Ahmad Chalabi through the 1990s. He helped draft the Iraq Liberation Act, which created the new funding stream for Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. At the start of the Bush administration he signed on as Don Rumsfeld's 'consultant' on Iraq at the Pentagon. And then when the administration started cranking up the machinery for the propaganda campaign in favor of war he went back on the outside to form and lead the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, to lead the press and lobbying campaign to make sure the war got started on schedule.

Remember, US intelligence later found evidence that Chalabi, in addition to foisting a bunch of bogus intelligence and lying informers on the US and pocketing a lot of US taxpayer dollars, had provided highly classified US intelligence to Iran. Scheunemann worked closely with Chalabi for years in his efforts to get the US into war with Iraq. He was also a go-between between Chalabi and McCain. Now that he's taking such a high-profile role on the Iraq issue in the 2008, Scheunemann's history with Chalabi and the use of bogus intelligence to get the nation into war is unquestionably highly newsworthy.

As you know, we've been keeping tabs on the Associated Press's atrocious campaign coverage this year. And now The Politico's Michael Calderone has a potential answer to the question of why the premier wire service's coverage this year sucks so bad: Ron Fournier, the new head of the AP's Washington Bureau.

Theda Skocpol asks the question: Can Democrats grow up and get behind their candidate for president?

The Bush administration is admitting defeat in its efforts to conclude a status-of-forces agreement with Iraq before the end of Bush's term of office. Such an agreement would have codified the long-term presence of US troops and military bases in the country. Beneath the gobbledegook, the hang-up seems clear: the Iraqis would not conclude an agreement without a clear timetable for US withdrawal.