Quote Originally Posted by daihashi
Let us not forget that this is just standard re-election year politics. With George W.'s support being at an all time low, and dragging much of his party down with him, it's natural for him to be more subtle and subdued in his decisions and approaches to problems.

He wouldn't go in there bombing Iran right now.. not with elections coming up and with the current campaigns running so close together. That would absolutely kill McCain's chances of winning.

Also I'm not sure if when you posted that link if it had been retracted yet or not, but Iraqi officials have backed away from their statements... taking their "endorsement" with them.

I wouldn't say this is Bush listening to Obama. He is the last person who would take Obama's advice. This is Bush playing politics in order to help his party achieve victory in November.

Only 4-5 months to go until election time.
Yeah, I was being copmpletely sarcastic when I said Bush was listening to Obama --- of course he's not.

But I'm not sure I agree that these changes in position by Bush are due to election-year politics either. From an election-year politics point of view, these shifts tend to undercut McCain some I think. These shifts give credibility to Obama's positions and make it seem like McCain is behind on these issues. If I were going to spin this in Obama's favor for political reasons, I'd say Obama was right all along, Bush is just now catching up, and McCain still hasn't seen the light. I don't see how this helps McCain at all.

And about the link --- yeah the Iraqi clarification had already come out, but I wanted to link to the story about the white house forwarding the story about Obama because I thought that was hilarious. From what I have seen, the Iraqi PM never "endorsed" Obama, even in the original statement --- he only spoke favorably about Obama's proposed timeline. In the later clarification, he just made it clear he was not endorsing any US politcal candidates, but he did not back off from the endorsement of the timeline. The Iraqi people and government want us to set a timeline and leave.