Hertzberg:

As [Obama] whirled through Afghanistan and Iraq—talking with troops, huddling with generals, conferring with presidents and prime ministers—the policy dominoes suddenly began toppling his way, flicked by unexpected fingers. Commanders on the ground in Afghanistan made known their belief that more NATO troops are badly needed there, as Obama has been arguing all along. The Bush Administration sent an Under-Secretary of State to a meeting in Geneva with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, thereby edging toward the kind of direct diplomatic engagement with Tehran that Obama has been urging all along. The White House announced that President Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, had agreed on the idea of a “time horizon” for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, thus seeming to endorse the general approach that Obama has been advocating (and his opponent just as firmly rejecting) all along. In an interview with Der Spiegel, Maliki went stunningly further [and essentially endorsed Obama’s timetable].

Here’s my theory on the Bush administration’s embrace of Obama’s foreign policy: after almost 8 years of turning everything he touches to shit, Bush figures he’s bound to fuck all this up too. Hopefully, it will all be a complete mess by late October, at which point McCain/Bush can say “See, we told you Obama didn’t know what he was doing.”

Too clever by half, though, as Bush sure to screw up his plan to screw up Obama’s foreign policy talking points, thus making a success of Obmama’s foreign policy.