On July 14th, The New York Times ran an op-ed piece by Barack Obama, in which details his plans for Iraq, and why, he believes, McCain's plans for Iraq are flawed. On July 21st, John McCain submitted a rebuttal piece to the same paper. However, the times rejected it. Times Op-Ed Editor David Shipley explains :
The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.
"It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan."
Hmmm. That really kind of makes you want to read the original piece, doesn't it? Well, fortunately for you (but unfortunately for McCain), The New York post got their hands on it, and decided to publish it.
Turns out, The New York Times made a wise decision in not running the op-ed. The Huffington Post reports on a myriad of errors made by McCain in his piece. However, some of the claims made by HuffPo, while factually sound, were a bit misleading or dubious, so I've not included them in this post. Rather, I'll just direct your attention to this quote from McCain's piece:
"In 2007, [Obama] wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we'd taken his advice, the war would have been lost. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.
"To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Maliki has endorsed his timetable - when the Iraqi prime minister has merely said that he'd like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of US troops at some unspecified future point."
Fact: Maliki did endorse Obama's timetable - two days before McCain submitted his piece. As Spiegel Online International reported in an interview with Maliki:
"US 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."
Well-played, McCain.