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The White House is pushing back against a McClatchy report that the administration plans to delay the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan from the previously announced July 2011 deadline to some time in 2014. You can read how the White House responded to the report over at Politico . Below, an excerpt of the article that set the spin cycle in motion. McClatchy News Service: The Obama administration has decided to begin publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to deemphasize President Barack Obama’s pledge that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials have told McClatchy News Service. The new policy will be on display next week during a conference of NATO countries in Lisbon, Portugal, where the administration hopes to introduce a timeline that calls for the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan by 2014, the year when Afghan President Hamid Karzai once said Afghan troops could provide their own security, three senior officials told McClatchy, along with others speaking anonymously as a matter of policy. Read more Related Entries November 10, 2010 Obama’s Royal Passage to Asia November 10, 2010 More Than a Failure to Communicate