Painted Into A Corner

McSame is quickly losing traction in his argument that he has a better plan to deal with the Iraq War than Obama.

Just to give you some perspective on this, Obama met with Iraq PM al-Maliki, during which meeting al-Maliki voiced his agreement with Obama on the 16-month timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

Logically, then, McCain has only a couple of choices, neither of which is good: 1) He can endorse the timetable, which he has consistently said would be disastrous and a "surrender." This would basically have him cede his biggest issue to Obama and implicitly defer to Obama's judgement in the matter; or 2) He could ignore the Iraqi government's expressed wishes and prolong this war.

But wait -- McCain came up with a third option. Here's a transcript of an exchange he had this morning with Meredith Vieira on the Today Show (my emphasis):

Vieira: "Senator Obama's timetable of removing U.S. troops from Iraq within that 16-month period seemed to be getting a thumbs up by the Iraqi prime minister when he called it 'the right timeframe for a withdrawal.' He has backed off that somewhat, but the Iraqis have not stopped using the word timetable, so if the Iraqi government were to say -- if you were President -- 'we want a timetable for troops to be removed,' would you agree with that?"

McCain: "I have been there too many times. I've met too many times with him, and I know what they want. They want it based on conditions and of course they would like to have us out, that's what happens when you win wars, you leave. We may have a residual presence there as even Senator Obama has admitted. But the fact is that it should be -- the agreement between Prime Minister Maliki, the Iraqi government and the United states is it will be based on conditions."

In parsing this response, he basically endorses the Obama/Maliki plan himself, but throws this term "based on conditions" around to suggest to voters that Obama and Maliki are being impulsive and have not thought this all the way through. He knows better, because he's been there. Remember, this is the same guy who walked through a "safe" Baghdad market surrounded by dozens of soldiers and wearing a vest that could stop a Stinger missile:

In the 1994 film Quiz Show, when Dan Enright, the producer of the game show Twenty-One played by David Paymer, finally realizes that he's been caught rigging the results of the show, the congressional lawyer Dick Goodwin, played by Rob Morrow, tells him, "It's over, Dan. Why don't you go home and tell your family?"

Something tells me McSame won't tell his family he's lost until sometime after November 4.