Just think that a couple weeks ago the entire campaign was engulfed by scrutiny of Obama's suggestion that he might be "refining" his plan for a 16 month timetable for withdrawal -- a twitter, if that, on the seismograph of campaign course corrections. Now consider that over the span of a few weeks Sen. McCain has gone from predicting a decades long presence of American troops in Iraq and attacking any discussion of timetables for withdrawal to endorsing Maliki's push for a 16 month timetable and tying himself in knots trying to explain why what Maliki's endorsing is any different from Obama's.

When confronted with Maliki's own words saying that he supports what Obama supports, McCain now falls back on that last redoubt of philanderers, asking the American people, "Who you gonna believe? Me or your lyin' eyes?"

For all the seismic shifts that have taken place over the last two weeks, we need to recognize that McCain has now abandoned virtually everything he's been campaigning on for the last year. There's really no more eloquent confirmation of that reality than the fact that McCain now appears determined to base his campaign on charges that Obama is unpatriotic and despises American soldiers.

Here, from Friday, is McCain's big screen star turn with the shark ...

Frank Rich on McCain: "a candidate so oblivious to our nation's big challenges ahead that he is doubling down in his campaign against both Mr. Maliki and Mr. Obama to be elected commander in chief of the surge."

McCain's new ad, which you can see here, is really beyond disgusting. At this point I think it's clear that honor really doesn't mean much to McCain. When things get tough, as it is in this election campaign, there's no limit to what he'll do.

How's he doing, Joe?

Time, March 21st, 2008 ...

Flanked by fellow Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, McCain noted they'd undertaken their week long fact-finding tour of Iraq, Jordan, Israel, England and France as members of Congress's Armed Services committee -- not as some sort of campaign foreign road show. Perhaps, but discussing international affairs with foreign leaders and enhancing McCain's presidential hopes aren't mutually exclusive. Still, McCain acted the apt pupil. "I wish every senator, every senator would make this same trip," McCain said, noting several of the first-hand educational experiences he'd gotten. "They'd be better informed."

Snatched from the memory hole by TPM Reader RB.

An open microphone catches Barack Obama saying he plans to take a week off from the campaign trail in August. That and other political news in today's Election Central Saturday Roundup.

Given what I do I mainly see youtube through the prism of political video -- viral video, our short commentary pieces, etc.; when I have my publisher's hat on I keep up on the latest business developments in advertising, distribution and so forth. But every once in a while, usually late in the evening, I stumble into the wealth of live performances just sitting there in this massive collection, waiting to be seen. I spend a couple hours overwhelmed by what I find. I'm amazed that I don't spend hours poking around and listening every night. And then I get pulled back in by work or whatever else has my attention and it's lost to me for months or more.

Here's Louis Armstrong & Jack Teagarden singing Rockin' Chair at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958. Always been one of my favorite duets, never seen them perform it. There's another live recording of these two singing this song that has just an edge more of the sadness in the intonation. That's the one I like best. But this is pretty good ...

As regular readers know, Election Central is TPM's election and politics site. As we head into the thick of the 2008 election cycle, we're considering staffing up a bit at Election Central. Particularly, we want a third blogger-reporter, mainly to dig deeper into House and Senate races around the country. This would be a temporary gig, basically for the last ten to twelve weeks of the election cycle. So the ideal person would be someone who knows Congress and elections, has reporting experience and is currently freelancing (so they'd have the flexibility to take the job). Of course, another prerequisite is wanting to hang out with us through the most insane part of the election cycle. So if you're interested, send me an email at our comments email address on the upper right with the subject header "Election Central Gig". Just a resume and email/letter explaining your interest in the gig.

I was working on a draft of a post digging into all the problems with Sen. McCain's explanation of why he's all for Maliki's 16 month timetable for withdrawal and dead-set against Obama's 16th month timetable for withdrawal. But I think that sentence alone illustrates how thin a strategic branch Sen. McCain is now standing on.

Even politicizing the State Department. ThinkProgress shows how the State Department pressed a narrow interpretation of Department guidelines in restricting Foreign Service Officers in Berlin from any involvement in Sen. Obama's visit to Germany (which I actually think was a good idea). But just last month Sen. McCain gave a political speech in Canada which was both attended by and arranged by the US Ambassador. Give it a read.

Late Update: And it seems McCain got the Foreign Service treatment in Mexico City too.

So in the interview that just ran on CNN, John McCain said that al Maliki's 16 month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is a "pretty good timetable." He only adds that "they have to be based on conditions on the ground."

In other words, Barack Obama's 16 month timetable is a catastrophe but al Maliki's is "pretty good". And the difference is that al Maliki's is based on conditions on the ground and Obama's isn't -- even though they're both 16 months.

Sen. McCain's made a series of pretty extraordinary statements on his interview on CNN. First, apparently Maliki didn't really mean what he said. Second, Wolf Blitzer read back to McCain his repeated claim that Obama would rather lose a war if it helped him win a political campaign. This is close to an accusation of treason. So Blitzer asked him whether this wasn't an attack on Obama's patriotism. McCain said 'no' that he was only questioning Obama's judgment. In any rational world the maverick label wouldn't survive a fib of that magnitude.

Perhaps best of all McCain appeared to embrace Maliki's timeline for withdrawal, but said there was no conflict with that also being Obama's timeline for withdrawal, because Maliki's was based on conditions and Obama's wasn't.

Last but not least, Blitzer asked McCain if it didn't make sense to scrutinize McCain's judgment in going to war in the first place if he's placing so much emphasis on scrutinizing Obama's judgment on the surge. McCain's answer, in so many words, that's old news.

We'll bring you video shortly.

John McCain tells CNN that if Osama bin Laden were captured on his watch he'd be sent to an "internationally supported" Nuremberg-style tribunal.

John McCain has laid claim to having the courage, foresight and leadership to stand up to President Bush's mismanagement of the war in Iraq (the strategic miscalculation is another matter).

But was McCain the critic of Bush that he makes himself out to be? Or was he a unabashed supporter of the President and his "my way or the highway" approach to Iraq?

TPM Election Central set out to compile McCain's public statements on the War, and we've put together an extensive timeline.

The record is considerably muddier than McCain would have us believe. His criticisms about troop levels, while clear and unmistakable, were hardly outside the mainstream -- and were sprinkled in among regular and vocal praise for the President and his policies.

Judge for yourself.

Late Update: The timelines we compile are in their nature works in progress. We compiled examples based on our own research, from McCain's website (which emphasized McCain's criticism) and from other lists focused on examples of McCain's support for Bush's policies. And we believe our list provides an accurate representation of the totality of McCain's comments over the years. But inevitably many examples have been left out. So review our list and if you believe you have more examples that should be included in the list send them to our comments email address with the subject heading "McCain Timeline". Be sure to include the exact quote as well as a citation to the source of the quote -- jmm.

World (a.k.a. Michael Berube) writes open letter to John McCain.

Here's Mark Halperin's top of the page headline at 'The Page'. Rush devoting show to attacks on Obama's overseas trip. That's the top news of the day ...

The text at the bottom reads "El Rushbo uses his Friday show to express obvious frustration about Obama's mid-course corrections on the international trip."

The Pentagon confirms to TPM Election Central that military officials told the Obama campaign he could not visit Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany yesterday with campaign aides in tow because that would violate DOD regs.

"We informed the Obama staff that he was more than welcome to visit as Senator Obama, with Senate staff. However, he could not conduct the visit with campaign staff," a Pentagon spokesperson tells EC.

Today's the deadline for applications for our Fall cycle TPM internship. Find all the details here.

CQ changes its ratings on 14 House races -- 12 in the direction of the Dem. That and the day's other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

Confessore in the Times ...

Four Spitzer administration officials violated the state's ethics law when they used the State Police last summer to gather travel documents they hoped would tarnish Joseph L. Bruno, then the State Senate majority leader, according to a report released on Thursday by the State Commission on Public Integrity.