Posted on 07/20/2008 7:16:02 AM PDT by Kleebo151
BAGHDAD, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki denied that he has released statements backing a plan of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama which sets a timeframe for possible U.S. troops withdrawal from Iraq, the government's spokesman said on Sunday.
Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that Maliki's statements to German magazine Der Spiegel "have been misunderstood and mistranslated and were not conveyed accurately regarding the vision of Senator Barack Obama on the timeframe for U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.xinhuanet.com ...
See also reactions from conservative blogs Hot Air and Red State.
Here's my take: Why didn't US media outlets attempt to confirm the veracity of the German magazine's claims?
Hey Obama! Better put some ice on that!!
It’s laughable that Obama’s meeting with Karzai, too. He just finish telling Karzai that he was a do nothing shitehead.
On a more serious note, they didn't because the story matches the action line. The action line is the direction the drive-by’s want the story to go. In this case they want the U.S. out of Iraq. Preferably in defeat, but they will take our being forced to leave by the Iraqi government that we fought to install. Anything that humiliates the U.S. and minimizes the accomplishments on our troops.
If you understand the concept of the action line all the activities of the drive-by's become understandable. If you don't you may be left scratching your head.
The media's due diligence and fact checking is reserved solely for Republicans.
Our straight arrow, non-biased media is not likely to fact check something which makes the Obamessiah look good! Actually, I’m amazed they are reporting the fact that their earlier story was a lie. I would have thought they would just sort of skip over that and go on to the next fluff piece about their hero.
Our American Born reporters can go to Hell for the treason and lies they have regurgitated upon us for the past 40 years!
The Foreign Born reporters are already bound for Burning Lands.
McCain does not think American troops should return to the United States until Iraqi forces are capable of maintaining a safe, democratic state.
Good idea.
Under Truman, 30,000 Americans were killed in 30 months* in Korea, because, under Truman, our troops had been withdrawn** when S. Korea was still weak.
*July 1950 - January 1953
**Our troops were withdrawn in 1949, 4 years after we freed S. Korea from decades of Japanese occupation.
Why doesn't anyone ask what Saddam be doing now, if we hadn't removed him from power?
Meanwhile, Drudge’s top story as I type this is the false claim that Maliki supports Obama’s withdrawal plan. Years ago, Drudge would have been the first to pick up the denial. Now he plays dumb.
Drudge has sooo lost his creds.
Humans seldom ask such questions or give credit for averting disasters that never happened.
Angels are needed to make men see.
buuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmp !!!
There. Fixed it.
Why does this seem like deja vu? Didn’t some democRat do this same thing about a year ago?
Der Spiegel reporting is about as trustworthy as The Nation. It is so bad it makes Newsweek look good by comparison.
What does Drudge have to do with this?
That is not true, the media will propagate any lie told about Republicans as if it were the absolute truth.
Wonder if the “clarification” will make the front page of tomorrow’s newspapers, since the “endorsement” was above-the-fold front page stuff on my two papers this morning...
The press got it bass-ackwards wrong last week too:
Iraq News
Rubaie denies halt of Iraq-US security pact
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 06:25 GMT
Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite Network
Iraq’s National Security Advisor Mowaffaq Al Rubaie denied reports saying that Washington and Baghdad have ended efforts to reach an agreement on the status of US Forces in Iraq before President George W Bush leaves office.
In an interview with the CNN, Al Rubaie announced that the article published by the Washington Post is untrue saying that Iraq and the US are working hard to reach an agreement by the end of July.
Earlier, the Post cited senior US officials as saying that Iraq and US will opt for an interim deal instead. It added that the “bridge” security document would be limited in both time and scope and would allow basic US military operations to continue once the UN mandate ended, which would likely covers till 2009 only.
It is to be noted that in the past week Iraqi leaders have evoked what they call a memorandum of understanding while Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki has also raised for the first time the prospect of a timetable withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Iraqi Vice President Tarek Al Hashemi approved this demand as well. The document is expected to include as well a “time horizon”, with specific goals for a US troop withdrawal from Baghdad and other cities and installations.
One ought to mention that while violence in Iraq has dropped to its lowest in 4 years and Iraqi security forces are commanding military operations, internal pressures are increasing on Iraq to set dates for a withdrawal of US Forces
The Newspaper noted that Al Maliki’s political opponents would likely cash in on the issue of an undefined US troop presence in provincial elections later this year.
The most debated unresolved issue was the legal immunity of US troops in Iraq which US officials have said it is non-negotiable, the Post added.
© 2007 Alsumaria Iraqi Satellite Network
Good point.
Some Iraqis are quite annoyed about this whole fiasco.
BTTT! I wondered about this previous statement coming out. The lamestream media at work????
I think you missed my point. What I'm saying is that anything Dems (and their allies in the media) say is accepted at face value whereas everything Republicans say is subject to intense scrutiny and critical review. Its simply a double standard that is applied. That said, your point about the media's propagation of lies is also true.
Why would we not want to have a presence in such a strategic position?? Sitting right next to Iran and Syria, come on. Course the Establishment Media went with a story making him look Presidential, he’s their candidate.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
BTTT!
Think of Hussein as the Islamists' fellow traveller, mole, agent-in-place.
When the stuff hits the fan, he will stand with the Muslims.
Excellent fix.
Too late, page A1 top of the fold LA times, as I knew it would be. The correction will be no where to be found.
Why didn’t they try to confirm the story? LOL, well hell, why let the facts get in the way of a great story?
See, the story is page one o the right above the fold, the correction is page 22 buried among the grocery ads.
Problem is the keep forgetting about the web.
As of 10.30 EST the retraction was on the DRUDGE site. It is still there and highlighted in red.
Maybe because:
White House Accidentally E-Mails to Reporters Story That Maliki Supports Obama Iraq Withdrawal Plan
Obviously, we are both right!
But why is the lie in big bold letter, still the top news, while the retraction is on tiny letters?
obamawama is proving what the voters already know, he’s arrogant empty suit who has no clue on how to deal with ANYONE WHO DOES NOT AGREE WITH HIS WORDS OF WISDOM.
Wouldn’t it now be wonderful if Nuri al-Maliki was busy when Obambi decided to stop in Bagdad? You know like running a country rather than posing like he is?
It never did make any sense that Maliki would say something like that openly even if he did agree.
Nice posting!
.
Thanks potlatch -
I added 3 more new .gifs to that .gif
Yes, I commented on it in another reply.
Sorry I failed to reply ... I was not on for a while.
In case you didn’t read the other responses regarding Drudge, people are annoyed because he 1) featured the big headline about the PM agreeing with the Obama plan (without doing any investigation) and then,
2) when it was denied, he continued to go with the original story only showing a small disclaimer underneath.
But I think there is just a general disillusionment with Drudge. He used to be cutting edge and pretty conservative. I think he’s now resting on his laurels and his money and trying to be a main stream guy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.