Internal Hillary campaign memo lays out strategy for dealing with new, upended primary schedule. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Sunday Roundup.

Once in a while, the ambiguous legal, political, and practical implications of Blackwater’s private security forces in Iraq create problems that are, to put it mildly, awkward.

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.

Blackwater confirmed that its employees were involved in two shootings but could neither confirm nor deny that there had been any casualties, according to a company official who declined to be identified because of the firm’s policy of not addressing incidents publicly.

As Steve Fainaru and Saad al-Izzi concede in their report, details about the incidents “remained sketchy.” Apparently, an Iraqi driver got too close to a Blackwater convoy. Was there a mistake? Who’s responsible? Who knows: “The Blackwater employees refused to divulge their names or details of the incident to Iraqi authorities…. Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company did not discuss specific incidents.”

As a result, as with most incidents involving private security firms operating in Iraq, we don’t know exactly what happened and why. We do know, however, that Blackwater employees have vague legal standing in Iraq, little oversight, and the firepower necessary to do some damage.

In this case, we also know how ugly it got.

The officials described a tense standoff that ensued between the Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces — both sides armed with assault rifles — until a passing U.S. military convoy intervened.

As if the dynamic of the conflict wasn’t complex enough, U.S. troops are now interceding in a gunfight between Iraqi Interior Ministry forces and employees of U.S. private security firm.

Great.

Today’s must-read story comes by way of the Boston Globe’s Peter Canellos, who reports on the highly misleading, if not downright false, rhetoric coming from the Republican presidential candidates on Iraq, al Qaeda, and the terrorist threat.

In defending the Iraq war, leading Republican presidential contenders are increasingly echoing words and phrases used by President Bush in the run-up to the war that reinforce the misleading impression that Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In the May 15 Republican debate in South Carolina, Senator John McCain of Arizona suggested that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would “follow us home” from Iraq — a comment some viewers may have taken to mean that bin Laden was in Iraq, which he is not.

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani asserted, in response to a question about Iraq, that “these people want to follow us here and they have followed us here. Fort Dix happened a week ago.” However, none of the six people arrested for allegedly plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey were from Iraq.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney identified numerous groups that he said have “come together” to try to bring down the United States, though specialists say few of the groups Romney cited have worked together and only some have threatened the United States.

“They want to bring down the West, particularly us,” Romney declared. “And they’ve come together as Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, with that intent.”

It’s a very strong piece. Canellos treads ground that may be familiar to those who follow the issue closely, but he details what the leading GOP candidates are saying and contrasts it with the truth. Not surprisingly, Rudy McRomney has been playing fast and loose with the facts, hoping that audiences won’t recognize their carelessness. Somewhat surprisingly, Canellos notes that these three have been willing to go even further than the Bush White House, which isn’t exactly known for its veracity on the issue.

Judith Yaphe, a former CIA Iraq analyst, told the Globe, “There’s a tendency to exaggerate in a debate. You push the envelope as far as you can.”

The GOP’s top tier, at this point, is pushing that envelope to the breaking point.

There’s ample evidence that Fox News viewers tend to be surprisingly uninformed about current events. We’re starting to get a better sense as to why that is.

What’s more important: Iraq or Anna Nicole Smith? Depends on which network you’re watching.

According to [the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s] first quarter News Coverage Index, “MSNBC and CNN were much more consumed with the war in Iraq than was Fox.”

In daytime, FNC devoted 6 percent of its time to Iraq, and 17 percent of its time to Anna Nicole. For CNN, the mix was 20 percent Iraq, 5 percent Anna; for MSNBC, the mix was 18 percent Iraq, 10 percent Anna.

“Fox also stood out for its lack of coverage on the firings of the U.S. attorneys, compared with the other channels. The story, which gained real momentum in mid March, consumed a mere 2% of Fox’s total airtime. CNN devoted twice that percent (4%) and MSNBC four times (8%).”

Keep in mind, in February, Fox News personality John Gibson accused journalists of “news-guy snobbery” over their war coverage. Mocking CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Gibson said, “Oh, ‘There’s a war on! There’s a war on!’ Maybe, just maybe, people are a little weary, Mr. Cooper, of your war coverage, and they’d like a little something else.”

Why does the network even bother to put “news” in its name?

Let’s look back to Jan. 11, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat at the witness table in Hearing Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building explaining why “those who talk about engagement with Syria and Iran” are all wet. “That’s not diplomacy — that’s extortion,” she said.

The administration has already reversed course on its policy towards Syria, with Rice having engaged in direct, bilateral talks with Syria’ foreign minister a few weeks ago. But direct discussions with Iran were always considered far more controversial. As far as the Bush gang is concerned, Iran needs to be isolated, not engaged. To talk to Iran is to “reward bad behavior.” We’ve gone a quarter-century without talking to Iran, and Bush wasn’t about to strike up a conversation, especially given the Ahmadinejad regime.

At least, that was the policy.

U.S. diplomats said Monday’s scheduled talks with Iran will be limited to discussions about Iraq’s security, and not about the unresolved issues of detained Americans in Iran or the country’s nuclear program.

The meeting in Baghdad will be the first public and formal meeting between U.S. and Iranian representatives since the United States cut off diplomatic relations 27 years ago.

“The issue at hand in the meeting between [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq] Ryan Crocker and the Iranian representative … is going to be focused on Iraq and stabilizing Iraq,” U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said last week.

I don’t disagree with the diplomatic decision, but it’s worth noting that after years of saying talks with Iran would be reckless and irresponsible, the Bush gang is grudgingly accepting the reality that Dems have been pushing for quite a while.

Would it be rude to point out how often this has happened of late? Dems said Bush should talk directly to Syria; Bush said Dems were weak to even suggest it; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should talk to North Korea and use Clinton’s Agreed Framework as a model for negotiations; Bush said this was out of the question; and Bush eventually came around. Dems said Bush should increase the size of the U.S. military; Bush said this was unnecessary; and Bush eventually came around.

And Dems said Bush should engage Iran in direct talks, particularly on Iraq. It took a while, but the president came around on this, too.

For years, all we’ve heard from the right is that Bush is a bold visionary when it comes to foreign policy, and Dems are weak and clueless. And yet, here we are, watching the White House embrace the Dems’ approach on most of the nation’s major foreign policy challenges.

Now, if Bush could just bring himself to accept the Democratic line on Iraq, too, we’d really see some progress.

For all of the talk from war supporters about lowering expectations for September — John McCain has been at it, as has Gen. Petraeus — it appears the train has already left the station. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who no one would describe as anything but a very conservative Bush loyalist, appears to have climbed aboard.

[Sessions] indicated Sunday that Republicans will be ready by September to look at bipartisan efforts to draw down the troops that were part of the surge to help secure Baghdad.

“We have to be realistic,” Sessions said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “We have to know that we can’t achieve everything we’d like to achieve. We have a limited number of men and women we can send to Iraq, and we can’t overburden them.”

The senator added that, when General David Petraeus is reporting back on the progress of the surge in September, “I think most of the people in Congress believe, unless something extraordinary occurs, that we should be on a move to draw those surge numbers down.” […]

“I don’t think we need to be an occupying power,” said Sessions, who hopes that bipartisan solutions can be found on Iraq. “This is a fine line we’ve walked, and this surge has got to be temporary…. We cannot sustain this level, in my opinion, in Iraq and Afghanistan much longer.”

When Chuck Hagel makes comments like these, it’s expected. When Jeff Sessions makes them, it’s unusual.

In addition to Sessions, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) recently said he “won’t be the only Republican, or one of two Republicans, demanding a change in our disposition of troops in Iraq” by September. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he’ll need to see “significant changes” by September. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants a change if the policy isn’t working “by the time we get to September.” Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) said, “There is a sense that by September, you’ve got to see real action on the part of Iraqis. I think everybody knows that, I really do.”

We’ll see. Anyone who has ever bet on congressional Republicans bucking the White House on war policy has lost money. Either way, whether war supporters like it or not, September is circled on DC’s calendar.

Today’s Must Read: checking in with the soldiers in Iraq on Memorial Day. What do they think of the war?

Former John Kerry adviser Jim Jordan allegedly told him in 2002 that he would “never be President” unless he voted for the Iraq War. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Memorial Day Roundup.

There’s a very troubling, but not very surprising article in today’s Times about the outward flow of jihadists from Iraq into neighboring countries. Lebanon, Jordan are cited as examples. But one could likely list all the neighboring states and Europe and the United States as destinations for fighters either trained in the Iraqi insurgency or wielding methods honed there against American troops.

On its face it is almost a storyline you might expect war supporters to embrace — Iraq as the central front in the ‘War on Terror’, a breeding ground of terrorism now spreading to other countries. Again we see the leitmotif of the president’s war on terror — evidence of the abject failure of his policies marshaled as evidence of the necessity of pursuing them.

We’re so far deep into this mess that sometimes I believe we’re past the point of argument. You look at the evidence and you either see it or you don’t. Or perhaps more agnostically, you look at the evidence and one of two completely contradictory narratives makes sense. Whichever is right, the assumptions brought to the issue are so divergent as almost to defy argument or debate.

At moments like this, a thought, actually an email, comes back into my head. I’ve referred to it a couple times over the years. But it was one TPM Reader TR sent in back on July 27th 2003, almost four years ago and only about four months after the war. This was back when what was then called the ‘flypaper’ theory of the Iraq War was first kicking into gear in the right-wing press.

From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To:
Subject:

Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 18:28:22 -0600
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000

Being based in Iraq helps us not only because of actual bases; but because the American presence there diverts terrorist attention away from elsewhere. By confronting them directly in Iraq, we get to engage them in a military setting that plays to our strengths rather than to theirs’. Continued conflict in Iraq, in other words, needn’t always be bad news. It may be a sign that we are drawing the terrorists out of the woodwork and tackling them in the open.–Andrew Sullivan

Now that’s extraordinary. Kind of like saying “by having a dirty hospital, we fight germs on our terms,” or something ridiculous. Its not as if there’s a finite number of “terrorists”–chances are anyone fighting us in Iraq never would’ve thought twice about attacking us elsewhere before we invaded–we’re breeding germs is all. Part of the reason Saddam was so brutal was because he had plenty of people as brutal as he going after him all the time–now we’ve unleashed those forces against our troops. Has there yet been any sign that our real nemesis, Osama and al Qaeda, are in Iraq? No. What we’re really doing is diverting our resources while al Qaeda sits back and reaps the windfall of our distraction and formulates their next attack. What horrible logic to rationalize the continuing deaths of American soldiers caught up in a situation that had nothing to with al Qaeda, nuclear weapons, or anything else of significance.

TR, as you can see, starts by clipping a passage from Andrew Sullivan’s site. And Andrew’s moved a long way on these points over the last four years. I only include this now for the sake of completeness, to share with you the email in its entirety.

Of course, give it time, give it time. This was only four months into the war. And, as you know, eventually some folks in Iraq adopted the name al Qaida, namely al Qaida in Mesopotamia. So now we can say it’s al Qaida. And of course al Qaida, or whoever still owns the rights to the franchise, is happy to call it that too since it puffs up their own organizational profile.

TR‘s point isn’t one that others haven’t made. But at the time I got his note it struck me as so hilarious and bitingly on point, hilarious because it stated in this unvarnished fashion, in disbelief, the essential ridiculousness of the premise of the entire fight. And while it seems obvious, the argument he was attacking really is still the central one animating our policy in Iraq.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen makes the rather creative case that Bush is a “sentimental softie” and a “neo-liberal.”