Good Monday morning. Only a short period of time left until Congress vacates Washington for all of August and Strategy Memo has to find something new to lead off with. Here's what an anxious D.C. is watching today:

-- The Senate begins consideration of a bill to curb oil speculation, though no roll call votes will occur this afternoon. The House has only a pro forma schedule set for the day. President Bush has a busy day, greeting the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team and hosting them for a social dinner. Between those two events, Bush will meet with the national ambassador for the March of Dimes and the President and Prime Minister of Kosovo. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched a week-long foreign trip yesterday, with stops planned in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa and Hawaii, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey delivers his thoughts on the legal approach to the war on al Qaeda at the American Enterprise Institute.

-- Barack Obama, who is in Iraq at the moment, won the weekend hands down after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reportedly expressed support for a withdrawal plan for U.S. troops that looked an awful lot like Obama's plan. A Maliki spokesman walked back the statement after his office got a phone call from officials at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the Post's Dan Eggen writes, Still, reacting to Maliki's comments, one Republican strategist sort of involved in the McCain campaign tells Marc Ambinder "We're [not happy at all]." (This is a family blog, but you get the picture.)

-- That the White House would get involved and ask Maliki to withdraw his statement only makes things better for Obama. Published in the German newspaper Der Spiegel, Maliki's office claims the remarks are taken out of context and mistranslated. But the newspaper is standing by their reporting, pitting a Bush Administration with historically low approval ratings against a position the majority of Americans support. Tampering too obviously with the presidential campaign isn't going to help Bush elect another Republican. Too, Bush's involvement only serves to remind people which candidate he's rooting for in November, which can't be good for John McCain.

-- But like all good press secretaries, Maliki's made and distributed a recording of the interview, and it's pretty hard to walk back comments like those the Prime Minister made. "Obama's remarks that -- if he takes office -- in 16 months he would withdraw the forces, we think that this period could increase or decrease a little, but that it could be suitable to end the presence of the forces in Iraq," Maliki said, per a New York Times translation. "Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq."

-- Meanwhile, Obama is in Iraq today after spending some of the weekend in Afghanistan, along with a few hours hanging out with U.S. troops in Kuwait and, on Sunday, with Sheik Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, the tiny country's emir. In Afghanistan, Obama sat down with President Hamid Karzai, and in Iraq he is expected to meet with top commanders on the ground, as well as with Maliki and President Jalal Talabani. Obama's foreign trip has generated huge headlines and dominated the political conversation, and far from being a danger to his campaign, the candidate is executing this trip like he does the rest of his presidential bid: Tightly controlled, with little room for error (He's given a major interview to CBS's Face The Nation, and that's the list).

-- Not all was bad news for McCain this weekend, as word leaked that evangelical leader and one-time McCain foe James Dobson said he could back the Republican nominee, the Associated Press reported last night. Dobson, who runs Focus on the Family out of Colorado Springs, speaks to a slice of the conservative base that hasn't demonstrated complete acceptance of McCain as their chosen candidate just yet. While it's true the GOP base is smaller now than it was during either of President Bush's runs for the White House, McCain still needs solidarity, and Dobson's endorsement, if it comes, will help.

-- But neither candidate is ceding evangelical voters, and, in what might be divine intervention, the two have agreed to meet for a presidential forum at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, in the middle of August. The church will host each candidate for an hour of questions from pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, the New York Times reports, focusing on issues important to Warren like poverty, AIDS and the environment, as well as on how each candidate makes decisions. The event looks like a win for Obama, who gets to say he accepted a joint appearance without actually having to debate, but any time McCain gets to compare himself side-by-side with Obama is another opportunity to hammer home the fact that most Americans think McCain is more qualified to be commander in chief.

-- Debt Of The Day: Hillary Clinton has lent her own campaign another $1 million, Federal Election Commission filings show, while the debt she has yet to pay off is rising. The Times' Michael Luo writes on Clinton's loan climbing to $13.2 million, with little more than a month to recover anything more than $250,000. Too, the campaign is still losing money, spending $5.4 million while raising just $2.7 million. This month, after all the staff has gone, is likely to be better, but the amount of help Obama has given Clinton in retiring her debt, which still stands at $12 million, could become a sore point between the two Democratic heavyweights.

-- Today On The Trail: McCain kicks off his week at a picnic for military families in South Portland, Maine, before spending the rest of the week focusing on the economy in top swing states. By the way, Maine is where top McCain aide Mark Salter has said he will retreat to begin work on McCain's convention speech. Maybe McCain is dropping his buddy off. Obama, meanwhile, is in Baghdad after a stop in Basra earlier. He will meet with Maliki and General David Petraeus tonight.