Victory's 1001st Father

You have to "admire" Barack Obama's ability (audacity) to get out in front of a passing parade and become its leader, while MSM entities like Reuters are content to carry on with the months-long process of anointing him.

As he begins his international campaign tour--touching down in Afghanistan today--Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki endorses Obama's post-inaugural plan for Iraq.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

One assumes that the prime minister thinks that the Iraqi Army is ready to keep a steady foot on the necks of domestic extremists and the veracity of this summation is backed up by many other observers. And even if the army is not ready, if the acknowledged government of the country says to go, we have to go.

Regarding Obama, however, this is the issue: if the Iraqi Army is ready to 'stand up' then that state of affairs was made possible by the US Armed Forces troop surge which John McCain helped formulate, which George W. Bush implemented and which Barack Obama vehemently opposed.

So he was wrong. Fine, we are all wrong sometimes, but could he at least say that he was wrong instead of pretending as though he always believed that the surge was going to work?

(Thanks to Memeorandum)