Hotline After Dark -- Baghdad Blues

Lots of '08ers on TV last night:

Mitt Romney was on "Your World":

Asked if he regrets the Fred Thompson web site: "Oh, of course. And it was not, of course, from our campaign. No one from our campaign put that site up. And my understanding is that an employee from a consultant we used in South Carolina put that up but it is not part of our campaign. He doesn't work in our campaign and I've instructed that consultant not to let him work in our campaign. That sort of stuff doesn't have a place in politics. It's juvenile, frankly. And it has no future."

More: "That sort of thing is going to go on and we're just going to have say that it's wrong."

Asked about Obama's speech: "Thank heavens Barack Obama was not president over the last year because had Barack Obama been president over the last year Osama bin Laden would have been declaring victory in Iraq. We would have had al Qaeda as a dominate player in Iraq. ... We would have had safe haven that would have made Afghanistan look like child's play. And the consequences for America and the world would have been dire. So we are fortunate that indeed that Barack Obama was not president. And I think the comments he has made over the last month with regards to unilaterally going into Pakistan, with visiting people like Ahmadinejad and Castro and Hugo Chavez, I think they really disqualify him in the minds of virtually everybody who's serious about this country. This is a man who by virtue of politics and perhaps panic has suggest a course of Iraq that would have lead to al Qaeda having a new safe haven" (FNC, 9/12).

And Barack Obama talked with FNC's Cameron:

Obama, on HRC: "If she did not ask the right questions before this war, it is not clear that she would be better equipped to ask the right questions in bringing the war to a close" ("Special Report," 9/12).

Meanwhile Chris Dodd was on "Countdown":

Asked how Dems can stop Bush: "I think we have to speak with clarity on all this. I don't want to get involved in the decision of what our missions are going to be here. That's the mission -- if you're going to accept there's a mission on the ground, trying to run that from the halls of Congress, I think, is dangerous. My view is, look, we ought to set a time certain for beginning redeployment and a time in which it's concluded to do it safely and securely. I would advocate between now and next April, to have two brigades a month, I'm told by planners, this can be achieved. This has to come to an end, in my view. ... It's time for us to pull our troops out of Iraq. That does not mean we disengage from the region. There are things that we can be doing there. The idea we're going to stay around in perpetuity almost is very trouble to me and, therefore, I think we have to be clear about a date certain."

MSNBC's Olbermann: "How do you do it? If you're going to just discuss defense spending next week, why not take the plunge and say, other than to keep them safe and assure their safe conduct home, we're not funding anything else for this war?"

Dodd: "I'll be proposing exactly that. I don't know how many votes I'm going to get here and I suspect not going to be enough certainly to survive a presidential veto. But I think the absence of clarity, of trying to always find language here that will bring you 51 or 55 ends up inevitably sort of supporting the continuation of the mission" (MSNBC, 9/12).

BAGHDAD NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD

Gen. David Petraeus did a series of TV interviews last night:

On saying he didn't know if what was happening in Iraq was making the U.S. safer: "My response yesterday was actually following a series of questions where I was trying hard to stay the MNF-I commander, if you will, not to try to be the overall commander in the global war on terror, or to talk about what we should do beyond the borders of Iraq" ("World News," ABC, 9/12).

Asked if he expected the reception he got: "There's certainly an intensity to the impatience and the frustration that was very, very palpable. I tried to lay out the situation on the ground. And it is very clear the enormous desire for results. And, again, you can feel that from afar; you can feel it in Baghdad. But you obviously feel it a great deal more in Washington and on Capitol Hill."

More: "I now say that I'm not an optimist or a pessimist. I'm a realist. And the reality is that Iraq is very, very hard, and there's nothing easy or quick about solving its problems" ("NewsHour," PBS, 9/12).

On his critics saying the Iraq strategy is too open-ended: "I think to try to look way out and say this is exactly what we're going to do in a country that has surprised us repeatedly just would not be responsible" ("Evening News," CBS, 9/12).

Asked if it was more dangerous in Washington or Baghdad right now: "Well, someone in our group here was saying they would not be completely reluctant to head back to Baghdad" ("AC 360," CNN, 9/12). [EMILY GOODIN]