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The Skinny, Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web, appears daily here on Public Eye and on the "Evening News" page at CBSNews.com.

Following the New York Times leakage yesterday of the expected (lest we forget non-binding) report from James Baker-Lee Hamilton & Friends (a.k.a the Iraq Study Group) the Washington Post today has its own rundown of the panel's anticipated suggestions.

The paper highlights the group's planned recommendation to cut troops – potentially by half – by 2008. In case you live under a rock somewhere, that happens to also be the same year we'll be electing a new president. "The choice of early 2008 as a goal could also, intentionally or not, change the nature of the debate over the war at the height of the U.S. presidential primary season." Really?

Both papers and the Wall Street Journal's newsbox have an overview of yesterday's meeting between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, following Wednesday's snub or no snub kerfuffle.

Graceful Exit From Iraq? Nah.

With that and the leaked recommendations from the Iraq Study Group in the air, Bush told reporters that Maliki is "the right guy for Iraq" and "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever." According to the Washington Post, White House aides later modified that statement, cautioning "against interpreting that as opposition to any change in the U.S. troop posture."

Instead, according to an aide: "Some options being discussed by the Iraqi Study Group and his own administration's internal policy review, the official said, are 'things that he's very open to.'" Writes the New York Times: "the idea of a major and rapid withdrawal seems to be fading as a viable option." The paper emphasizes the same in a news analysis, aptly titled, "Idea of Rapid Withdrawal From Iraq Seems to Fade."

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