July 20, 2008
Misunderstanding Maliki
Via Instapundit comes re-reportage that reports of Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's support for Obama's withdrawal plan were over-hyped. From CNN:
But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately."Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.
As with much else in the Obama legend, his supporters are quick to run with reports that just seem too good (from their perspective) to be true.
This is from Spiegel Online International, July 25, 2008 with my emphasis of the quote thru use of italics. Justin has stopped short of the complete quote, doing the exact thing that he implies the "liberal" media is doing. Fair is fair Justin. If you're going to seek the truth you must follow it, no matter where it leads.
A number of media outlets likewise professed to being confused by the statement from Maliki's office. The New York Times pointed out that al-Dabbagh's statement "did not address a specific error." CBS likewise expressed disbelief pointing out that Maliki mentions a timeframe for withdrawal three times in the interview and then asks, "how likely is it that SPIEGEL mistranslated three separate comments? Matthew Yglesias, a blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, was astonished by "how little effort was made" to make the Baghdad denial convincing. And the influential blog IraqSlogger also pointed out the lack of specifics in the government statement.
SPIEGEL sticks to its version of the conversation.
OldTimeLefty Posted by: OldTimeLefty at July 21, 2008 5:22 PM