First we have Iraqi PM Maliki endorsing Obama's 16-month pullout plan. The the Bush administration muscled Maliki's people to issue a statement that the PM was "misquoted" or "mistranslated." The funny part was that this sort-of retraction didn't name any specific part of Maliki's interview that was wrong, and the message itself came from CENTCOM. Gee, why would the Iraqi government send out a message through the U.S. Military?

But now we learn that the translator for this interview was Maliki's, and there is a recording of the interview that has been re-translated and confirms that Maliki really did say these things.

So the latest spin from the Bush folks is that Maliki was simply appeasing his restless constituents in Iraq. After all, to them, a politician saying something he doesn't believe comes naturally.

Except that here, it points out the obvious, that the Iraqis and their government would like for us to leave, sooner than later. That leaves a whole lot of people who don't like Bush's and John McCain's plans for Iraq.