Not only did Maliki endorse Obama’s Iraq strategy if not Obama himself, not only was it not a mistranslation, not only has Maliki been saying the same basic thing for the past two weeks, not only did Maliki and his office repeat the endorsement of Obama’s plan after meeting with the candidate, but aside from all this, it looks like Maliki’s office approved of the original Spiegel interview in the first place, verifying that Spiegel’s translation was perfectly fine.

Not that it matters. The Liberal Media™ have the phoney-baloney “correction” from a Maliki staffer who was pressured by the U.S. into make a statement which, though nebulous, cast even the slightest shred of doubt about Maliki’s endorsement of a withdrawal of US troops by 2010. So, despite the overwhelming evidence that Maliki’s position is in support of Obama, the official view in the US media is that it “could have been” (read: was) a “mistranslation”–and most Americans, if asked, would probably report having received that impression. Which is all McCain needed to defuse what would otherwise have been an unmitigated disaster for his campaign–thanks to the complicity of the US media which, according to McCain, are “favoring” Obama.