"And as Ben Smith aptly puts it, "It's almost a convention of politics that when a politician says he was misquoted, but doesn't detail the misquote or offer an alternative, he's really saying he wishes he hadn't said what he did, or that he needs to issue a pro-forma denial to please someone. The Iraqi Prime Minister's vague denial seems to fall in that category. The fact that it arrived to the American press via CENTCOM, seems to support that."

"Matt Yglesias enumerates the reasons why this 'walk back' almost certainly falls into the latter category.

"I'll be watching to see whether the major papers continue to downplay the story. As Todd Gitlin notes, of the LA Times, Washington Post and NY Times, only the LAT put the story on the front page of their Sunday paper, though the Post had it as an ambiguous subhed on their front page Obama to War Zone story.

"Notably and humorously, the Post editorial page appears to ignore the issue entirely.

"Late Update: TPM Reader TB notes that weekend editorials are usually banked in advance and not written in response to the news of the preceeding day. In this case, the topic seems so central to the Post editors' concerns that I thought they might take a crack at it. But TB makes a good and fair point."

Seems like there is a disagreement between the US occupiers and the Iraqi occupied about sovereignty, the realities of the Bushite occupation, and what Iraqi leaders can and cannot say.

And the McSame campaign aka Bush third term express continues to stumble and bumble. 

From ThinkProgress: "In response to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s clear statement in support of a 16-month redeployment from Iraq, a senior McCain official tells Marc Ambinder “[V]oters care about [the] military, not about Iraqi leaders.” A “prominent Republican strategist” who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said more candidly, “We’re f*cked.” Recall, this is what McCain said in 2004:

"QUESTION: Let me give you a hypothetical, senator. What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there? I understand it’s a hypothetical, but it’s at least possible.

McCAIN: Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it’s obvious that we would have to leave because — if it was an elected government of Iraq — and we’ve been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don’t see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people."