TIMES SAVES McCAIN FROM SELF-INFLICTED EMBARRASSMENT, HANDS HIM OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY VICTIM CARD

Is David Shipley, the op-ed page editor of The New York Times, secretly working for the McCain campaign? By rejecting McCain's op-ed on Iraq, he just handed McCain a double gift.

First, thanks to the Drudge story on the rejection, McCain gets to whine about victimization by the liberal media. Beyond that, McCain now gets to avoid having these embarrassing words appear on the most prestigious op-ed page in America:

He [Obama] makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

(Headline at Mark Halperin's Page right now: "Iraqi Government Agrees With Obama, Hopes for U.S. Withdrawal By 2010." I guess it depends on what the definition of "unspecified point in the future" is.)

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges.



(A million years isn't forever, is it? It's less than a million and one, right?)

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama's determination to pull out all of our combat troops.

(He wants just what two-thirds of the country wants! How off-putting that will seem to the electorate!)

Hey, Times, you would have been doing Obama (and America) a favor if you'd complied with McCain's wishes and run this damn thing. Instead, you helped McCain just when he's more desperate for help than ever. Thanks a lot.