Anatomy of the Right Wing Noise Machine: Maliki and Withdrawal

Posted by dday, Hullabaloo at 2:05 PM on July 21, 2008.

As I'm slowly rotating back to blog life, I'm focusing on this Maliki/withdrawal story, because it's of course really important, but the response from the right-wing noise machine is important as well, in fact almost a microcosm of how they've reacted to any story that punctures their narrative over the last eight years.

Before this even happens, Bush has been forced into acknowledging a mealy-mouthed general time horizon for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Then Maliki makes the comments to the German magazine Der Spiegel. It didn't get full recognition in the states until the White House accidentally emailed their entire reporter list the article when they intended to email their internal list to coordinate message. After the uproar, the White House and the McCain campaign claimed it was a mistranslation, but the audio tapes of the interview prove that the translation was correct.

But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki's office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki's interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama's position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.

The following is a direct translation from the Arabic of Mr. Maliki's comments by The Times: "Obama's remarks that -- if he takes office -- in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq."

That having failed, the White House starts putting massive pressure on the Maliki government to walk back the comments. He responds with a sort of restatement, only it was put out by CENTCOM and not the independent Iraqi government. In the background, it's clear that Maliki is using the Presidential election to negotiate the best deal, and despite this pressure he won't really be that cooperative with Bush Administration entreaties to stop with the withdrawal talk. In fact, just today, the spokesman who walked back Maliki's comments walked them forward again, in ENGLISH, essentially re-endorsing Obama's withdrawal plan:

Iraq's government spokesman is hopeful that U.S. combat forces could be out of the country by 2010.

Ali al-Dabbagh made the comments following a meeting in Baghdad on Monday between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day.

Don't believe the dumb spin from Fred Hiatt's Washington Post, that al-Dabbagh somehow contradicted Obama. The assertion here is clear, and the difference between eight months and indefinitely, as McCain would have it, is pretty wide.

Now for the "disengaged with reality" part. The McCain camp is still disputing the Maliki translation, even though it has been confirmed true and his top spokesman has now said the same thing in English. (Someone should ask them if we'd have better translation skills if all those Arabic translators weren't fired from the military for being gay.) Then, in a tip of the "daddy party" hand, McCain basically said today that he knows better than the Iraqi government or its people how to best manage their future. It's the colonial mindset to a T.

Vieira: "Senator Obama's timetable of removing U.S. troops from Iraq within that 16-month period seemed to be getting a thumbs up by the Iraqi prime minister when he called it 'the right timeframe for a withdrawal.' He has backed off that somewhat, but the Iraqis have not stopped using the word timetable, so if the Iraqi government were to say -- if you were President -- we want a timetable for troops being to removed, would you agree with that?"

McCain: "I have been there too many times. I've met too many times with him, and I know what they want. They want it based on conditions and of course they would like to have us out, that's what happens when you win wars, you leave. We may have a residual presence there as even Senator Obama has admitted. But the fact is that it should be -- the agreement between Prime Minister Maliki, the Iraqi government and the United states is it will be based on conditions. This is a great success, but it's fragile, and could be reversed very easily."

So we have the conservative response to crisis: secrecy, incompetence, muddying the waters based on irrelevant and untrue technicalities, continuing the zombie lies after they're disproven, and finally revealing the truth, that they think they know better than the wogs anyway. Also, the media has repeatedly soft-pedaled Maliki's remarks and at times tried to sow contradictions where none exist.

This story has everything.

Tagged as: maliki, obama, mccain, bush, troop withdrawal, right wing noise machine