Jake Tapper, ABC News: The White House this afternoon accidentally sent to its extensive distribution list a Reuters story headlined "Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine."The story relayed how Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told the German magazine Der Spiegel that "he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months … ‘U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,'" the prime minister said.
The White House employee had intended to send the article to an internal distribution list, ABC News' Martha Raddatz reports, but hit the wrong button.
The misfire comes at an odd time for Bush foreign policy, at a time when Obama's campaign alleges the president is moving closer toward Obama's recommendations about international relations -- sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, discussing a "general time horizon" for U.S. troop withdrawal and launching talks with Iran.
LSB: Ouch! That's has to smack, when you base your legitimacy (and legacy) on your foreign policy expertise and then inadvertently tell your entire press list the opposite party’s candidate is pursuing the policy you SHOULD have been pursuing all along. Damn that’s gotta hurt, especially coming so close on the heals of Obama calling for talks with Iran, your administration declaring those remarks 'an appeasement', and then your State Department actually does sit down with the Iranians when it is shamed into it by their EU counterparts. (Video of Sec. Rice confirming the flip-flop.) It must suck being the Bush administration when you see how a real president would handle the situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment