The New York Times just can't lay off the GOP's Kool-Aid. Take, for example, their story ("In Montana, Obama Tries to Rally Support on Iraq ") about Barack Obama's Fourth of July in Montana:

Mr. Obama’s statements about Iraq on Thursday continued to reverberate. First, he said he might “refine” his plan for withdrawing troops after meeting with military commanders in Iraq this summer. Later, he emphasized his commitment to removing combat troops within 16 months of his taking office.

Wonderful. Pray tell, where might that reverberation be taking place? Oh, I see -- it's reverberating in the very same article:

One day after Mr. Obama said he would consider refining his plan to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months, he offered no timetable for withdrawal as he criticized the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, which he said “has not made us more safe and has fanned anti-American sentiment all around the world.”

Was this some detailed policy speech worth of such misguided over-analysis? No. He was speaking at a barbeque -- not the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It’s a war we need to bring to an end,” he added, speaking over applause from a crowd of about 1,000 at a picnic outside the World Museum of Mining.

Perhaps faced with a paucity of real information to support his narrative, Zeleny resorts to the "man in the crowd" method of demonstrating that Obama's remarks are influencing public discourse:

His Republican rivals were unusually quiet on Friday, with neither the McCain campaign nor the Republican National Committee seeking to amplify their criticism of Mr. Obama’s views on Iraq. Yet it was a subject of conversation among some voters who came to see Mr. Obama at a parade in downtown Butte and at a picnic on the edge of town.

“I think he should be careful about what he says,” said Bob Evans, 67, a Butte native who now lives in Wisconsin. “I hope he doesn’t change his mind on the war. I think he’s a man of principle.”

How much do you want to bet that the reason it was a the subject of conversation among some voters is that Zeleny asked them about it? Perhaps he should take note of the fact that the "remarks" were not brought up in any of the local coverage.

Zeleny might try to explain that away by arguing that the local yokels are naive fools who wouldn't know a policy debate if it hit them square in the face. But the reality is that the local clearly know a helluva' lot more than he does.

Here's part of what I think is going on: thanks to conditioning from the McCain campaign, they were waiting to pounce on something -- anything -- that Barack said that could be construed as changing his support for Iraq withdrawal. So when he said he would take information from commanders on the ground and use that to refine the manner in which the withdrawal takes place -- a position he has held consistently -- they jumped on it as if he were raising doubts about whether or not he favored ending the war in Iraq.

Obviously, the media's interpretation was 100% incorrect. But now they feel a need to justify why they got it wrong, or as in Zeleny's case, that they may actually have gotten it right. Unfortuantely for them, there is nothing they can point to that directly confirms their initial thesis.

Consequently, they have now established a second-order argument to explain why Obama really is changing course.

What they are saying now is that Obama is no longer mentioning his sixteen month timeline. (Of course, as even Zeleny is forced to admit, he is mentioning it, but that's another story.)

So when Barack Obama gives a speech that doesn't mention the sixteen month timeline this becomes evidence to support the flip-flop.

But the obvious flaw in this argument is (a) not mentioning something does not mean he is abandoning it and (b) there's nothing new about him not mentioning it. For example, in the Cleveland, Ohio debate last February, Barack made no mention of a sixteen month timeline. Here's what he said:

I have said that as soon as I take office, I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we will initiate a phased withdrawal, we will be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in.  We will give ample time for them to stand up, to negotiate the kinds of agreements that will arrive at the political accommodations that are needed.  We will provide them continued support.  But it is important for us not to be held hostage by the Iraqi government in a policy that has not made us more safe, that's distracting us from Afghanistan, and is costing us dearly, not only and most importantly in the lost lives  of our troops, but also the amount of money that we are spending that is unsustainable and will prevent us from engaging in the kinds of investments in America that will make us more competitive and more safe.

Does this mean that Barack Obama changed his commitment to withdrawal way back in February? Obviously not. But by Zeleny's illogic, he did.