Maliki Meant What He Said. Get Over It Republicans

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's endorsement of Barack Obama's strategy for a U.S. withdrawal has, expectedly, caused some scurrying among Republican politicians and their water carriers.  Maliki's interview with German magazine, Der Spiegel, capped off a week where the McCain campaign was finally forced to agree with Obama's long held view Afghanistan was being short shrifted, the White House reversed course and adopted Obama's position of direct negotiations with Iran, and the White House announced a phased withdrawal (now being called "joint aspirational time horizons") from Iraq that sounds exactly like Barack Obama's position.

Maliki's statements to Der Speigel really must have been the final straw, and caused the Republicans to come unglued.  As noted yesterday, one big time Republican stategist stated it simply:  "We're (expletive)!"

It's being reported Bush Administration officials were on the phone with the Prime Ministers office shortly after the Der Speigel story hit the wires.   A representative from the Iraqi government ultimately released a statement saying Maliki's remarks were "misunderstood and mistranslated".  But Ben Smith from Politico thought the denial was a little fishy:

It's almost a convention of politics that when a politician says he was misquoted, but doesn't detail the misquote or offer an alternative, he's really saying he wishes he hadn't said what he did, or that he needs to issue a pro-forma denial to please someone.

The Iraqi Prime Minister's vague denial seems to fall in that category. The fact that it arrived to the American press via CENTCOM, seems to support that. It came, as Mike Allen notes, 18 hours later, and at 1:30 a.m. Eastern, a little late for Sunday papers; his staff also seems, Der Spiegel reports, not to have contested Iraqi reporting of the quote, even in the "government-affiliated" Iraqi press.

The notion this was a misquote also bumps up against Der Spiegel's standing by its reporting, and providing a long, detailed transcript.

Der Speigel issued the following statement later today:

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.

Mailikis' intent may have been a smart move to satisfy Iraqi Shia that are adamant about setting a U.S. withdrawal date or Maliki positioning himself for further negotiations with the Bush White House.  But whatever his intent,  it seems very clear he said what he said; the Obama plan is the one that most jives with his own thoughts on the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

And all the Republican attempts today and this coming week to spin this story into something its not is just a bunch of folks trying desperately to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.