With Barack Obama in the midst of a much-hyped trip to the Middle East and with all the news that came out over the weekend regarding the Iraqi government’s positive comments toward Obama’s withdrawal timetable, we figured it was only fair to allow John McCain a full episode of TPMtv to explain away the headlines …

High-res version at Veracifier.com.

Earlier today I flagged the question of just what Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said today about the Iraqis’ timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. The year 2010 puts them more or less in line with Barack Obama’s stated plan. But there was some question about whether he said during 2010 or by the end of 2010.

Looking at the evening reports in the LA Times and NY Times, it seems clear that he did say ‘by the end’ of 2010.

The LAT described this as “roughly the same time frame laid out by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, who has called for removing most troops by the summer of that year.”

Says the NYT: “Mr. Obama has said he would seek to withdraw American combat forces over 16 months if he is elected president, starting upon taking office in January, meaning his plan would be completed on roughly the same timetable as suggested by the Iraqis.”

So following up on my post this afternoon, the Post seemed to have the translation issue right — but their tendentious editorializing still confirms me in my sense that the paper is pushing McCain.

Blackwater is getting out of the security contracting business because “U.S. government scrutiny and negative media attention had made the business too costly.”

So what’s the new racket? Dry goods? Day care?

Actually, the AP article says they’re now going to focus on “training, aviation and logistics.”

Come to think of it, ‘training, aviation and logistics’ sounds a lot like military contracting. But who knows.

Eric Kleefeld suggests another possibility. As a partisan Republican mercenary outfit, they may rightly anticipate slackening sales under a Democratic president.

This year long-time Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) has a real challenger, Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook (D-CA). And we interviewed her at this last weekend’s Netroots Nation conference in Austin …

Barack Obama will hold a press conference in Jordan at 10 a.m. ET, while John McCain will be holding a town hall meeting in New Hampshire. That and the days other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

It’s a latter-day illustration of the ancient paradox: Cretans always lie, said the Cretan.

Which brings us to our old friend Ahmad Chalabi. My friend Eli Lake, a lieutenant, perhaps now a capo, in the DC neocon army, reports that Chalabi is now claiming that it was on his advice that Prime Minister al Maliki tipped his hand in favor of Barack Obama’s withdrawal plan in his comments to the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Meanwhile, surgemeister Fred Kagan says Maliki really wants us to stay but the Iranians are pressuring him.

Of course, US intelligence alleges that Chalabi has worked as an Iranian spy. So perhaps there’s a unified theory of Chalabi bamboozlement that a more systematic mind than I can construct.

Or perhaps we just go with Occam and figure that Chalabi had nothing to do with it at all but wants to snag some credit on the cheap.

As we move through the down tempo period before the conventions, I’m looking forward to a period of severe dignity losses on the part of the major Republican veep wannabes. Rudy was making the rounds this morning talking up McCain and actually caught a ballgame with him a couple nights ago. But I have to wonder whether Rudy knows that there’s actually no way McCain will ever pick him to be veep. I mean, think about it: that’s just what McCain needs, a veep who can help him with moderates who don’t find him sufficiently war-like and ill-tempered and Christian conservatives who don’t think he’s had enough affairs.

Anyway, I don’t think Rudy will provide the best entertainment because he’s got to know it’s not going to happen. On the other hand, Mitt Romney’s stock seems improbably on the rise. He brings his own fundraising base. Like many other faltering financial institutions, he’s recently done a major write-down. And for comic value, Mitt was always our favorite.

Crist seems to want it too much to be chosen. If McCain picked Fred Thompson it could be that like that astronaut movie from the 90s where a bunch of old Mercury/Gemini astronauts go up into space to repair some archeo-satellite. But a combined age of 140 during the first year of office is probably unconstitutional. The Pawlenty guy is so boring and soft-soap he’ll probably get picked, so I’d rather not talk about him.

I will say this: As underwhelming as McCain has been so far as a candidate, I still think he was the only remotely sensible choice for the Republicans. I am close to certain that had any of the other choices on offer been picked, especially Mitt, he’d be getting crushed at this point.

Who do you think McCain should pick? Either for the purposes of winning or for humor value.

Watching the Obama press conference this morning, Greg Sargent was again struck by how Obama is articulating a bold, muscular approach to foreign policy in addition to striking the usual Democratic theme of multilateralism, specifically appropriating language the GOP uses about Iraq and instead using it to describe Afghanistan.

A new Rasmussen poll just out gives McCain a 10-point lead in the key swing state. But a PPP poll out yesterday gave Obama an 8-point lead.

Josh and I were discussing a little while ago just how complete the Republican collapse on foreign policy has been in the short span of just a few weeks. It’s remarkable and hard to think of any recent historical parallels.

The implications for John McCain are hard to overstate, and Matt Yglesias gets it just right:

[McCain had] spent, several weeks with the main theme of his campaign being, quite literally, to criticize Barack Obama for not having been physically present in Iraq recently. This (of course) got Obama to go to Iraq, thus setting up a dilemma. Either Obama would survey the “progress” in Iraq and change his position, thus making him a flip-flopper, or else he would refuse to change his position, thus making him obstinate and out of touch with reality.

But instead of either of those things happening, Obama went to Iraq and Iraqi leaders said he’d been right all along! That’s about as close to “game, set, match” as you get in terms of real world events influencing your political campaign. What’s more, given the domestic situation and John McCain’s inability to talk about domestic issues persuasively, he can’t afford to play for a draw on Iraq.

This is what happens when you build your entire campaign on the shifting sands of Iraq.

Late Update: Spencer Ackerman has more.