Mac: Maliki's 'Pretty Good Timetable' Beats Obama's

In an interview with CNN today, John McCain called Nouri al-Maliki’s troop withdrawal plan a “pretty good timetable”—leading Josh Marshall, on Talking Points Memo, to call foul. So “Barack Obama's 16 month timetable is a catastrophe,” Marshall says, the difference being that the Iraqi prime minister’s “is based on conditions on the ground and Obama's isn't—even though they're both 16 months.”

Marshall’s colleague Greg Sargent draws attention to Mac’s claim in the same interview, that he doesn’t impugn his rival’s patriotism by saying Obama would rather lose a war than a campaign: “I’m sure that he's a very patriotic American. I question his judgment.” OK, Sargent quips, “He wasn't accusing Obama of being unpatriotic. He was accusing him of treason.” (More John McCain stories.)