IT'S OFFICIAL: MALIKI DID BACK OBAMA'S PLAN

If Charles Krauthammer admits it, then the wingnuts who tried to claim otherwise have lost that spin battle. Kraut does try to re-spin this by attributing the progress solely to Teh Surge but we KNOW that's a LIE.

Maliki Votes for Obama

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 25, 2008; Page A21

In a stunning upset, Barack Obama this week won the Iraq primary. When Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not once but several times expressed support for a U.S. troop withdrawal on a timetable that accorded roughly with Obama's 16-month proposal, he did more than legitimize the plan. He relieved Obama of a major political liability by blunting the charge that, in order to appease the MoveOn left, Obama was willing to jeopardize the astonishing success of the surge and risk losing a war that is finally being won.

In case you have any lingering doubts about Maliki's interview in Der Spiegel, The Plank at The New Republic offers more evidence that Maliki wasn't "mistranslated" (h/t SilentPatriot at Crooks & Liars)

German magazine Der Spiegel caused quite a commotion this week by printing an interview with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki in which he endorsed Obama's Iraq plan by name. Some tried to downplay the significance of this endorsement by saying that Maliki had been misquoted by the magazine. But it turns out that Maliki actually got a copy of the interview before it was printed and had the option to make any changes. A writer at Der Spiegel sent us this tidbit of info:

The reason the magazine scores so many high level interviews is that the editors agree to allow the subjects to "authorize" the interviews before they go to press. It wasn't just a slip of the tongue, in other words: Maliki not only endorsed Obama's plans for withdrawing from Iraq, but his office then explicitly approved the endorsement before it was printed. The denials, then, were doubly facetious. Spiegel couldn't say so, though, without revealing its embarrassing authorization policy.