Obama taken to task for distorting McCain's '100 years in Iraq' remark

[DixieBelle]

Ever since John McCain said at a town hall meeting in January that he could see U.S. troops staying in Iraq for a hundred years, the Democrats have been trying to use the quote to paint the Arizona senator as a dangerous warmonger. And lately, Barack Obama in particular has stepped up his attacks on McCain’s “100 years” notion.

But in doing so, Obama is seriously misleading voters—if not outright lying to them—about exactly what McCain said. And some in the press are failing to call him on it.

Here’s McCain’s full quote, in context, from back in January:

Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…
McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.


It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long. That’s a very different thing. As he says, we’ve had troops in South Korea for over fifty years, but few people think that means we’re still fighting the Korean War.

Nevertheless, back in February, Obama said: “We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another hundred years.”

And, on a separate occasion: “(McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another hundred years of war in Iraq.”

Since then, some conservatives have drawn attention to the distortion, and Obama’s been a bit more careful with his language. Today, for instance, he said: “We can’t afford to stay in Iraq, like John McCain said, for another hundred years.” It’s technically true that McCain said that, but Obama’s clear goal in phrasing it that way was to imply, falsely, that McCain wants the war to continue for that long. In other words, he’s gone from lying about what McCain said to being deeply misleading about it. Progress, of a kind.

Still, some outlets continue to portray the issue as a he-said, she-said spat. A long takeout on the controversy by ABC News, opining that McCain’s comment “handed his Democratic opponents and war critics a weapon with which to bludgeon him,” is headlined: “McCain’s 100 Year Remark Hands Ammo to War Critics: McCain Haunted by January Remarks Suggesting 100 More Years in Iraq.” And today’s L.A. Times story, headlined “Obama, McCain Bicker Over Iraq,” is similarly neutral.

To be fair, the ABC News piece does provide the quote in its full context, giving enough information to allow conscientious readers to figure out the truth. That’s better than the L.A. Times piece, which says only that “McCain has stressed since then that he meant that U.S. troops might need to remain to support Iraqi forces, not to wage full-scale warfare”—instead of simply telling readers that it’s clear from the context that McCain did indeed mean that. Still, neither piece stated high up and unequivocally that Obama is distorting McCain’s words.

To be clear, if Obama wants to take issue with McCain’s willingness to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for a hundred years in any capacity, that’s obviously his right. But that’s not the same as misleading voters about what McCain is proposing,

This matters. Obama has given every indication that his general election strategy on Iraq and foreign policy will be to portray McCain as dangerously bellicose. If he’s going to do so by distorting McCain’s words, the press should forcefully call him out on it each time.

http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_us_iraq_and_100_years.php?page=all

crickets in the MSM

[Lord Undies]

The real problem for Hussein Obama is that he, the democrats in general, and the MSM believe their own propaganda.  The military operations current going on in Iraq are not anywhere near as unpopular with the masses as they try to make the masses believe.

[Wretched Excess]

krauthammer calls it "a dirty lie" in his recent opinion piece.

McCain Wants 100 Years of War?
Even in politics, it's seldom that you see such a dirty lie.

By Charles Krauthammer

Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted — “Make it a hundred” — then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so.” Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: “That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.”

And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: “It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world.”

There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous “presence” McCain was suggesting for postwar Iraq: Kuwait. The U.S. (with allies) occupied Kuwait in 1991 and has remained there with a major military presence for 17 years. We debate dozens of foreign policy issues in this country. I’ve yet to hear any serious person of either party call for a pullout from Kuwait.

Why? Because our presence projects power and provides stability for the entire Gulf and for vulnerable U.S. allies that line its shores.

The desirability of a similar presence in Iraq was obvious as long as five years ago to retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, one of Barack Obama’s leading military advisers and his campaign co-chairman. During the first week of the Iraq War, McPeak (a war critic) suggested in an interview that “we’ll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right.” (Meaning, if we win.)

Why is that a hopeful outcome? Because maintaining a U.S. military presence in Iraq would provide regional stability, as well as cement a long-term allied relationship with the most important Arab country in the region.

As McPeak himself said about our long stay in Europe, Japan, and Korea, “This is the way great powers operate.” One can argue that such a presence in Iraq might not be worth the financial expense. A legitimate point — it might require working out the kind of relations we have with Japan, which picks up about 75 percent of the cost of U.S. forces stationed there.

Alternatively, one might advocate simply bolstering our presence in Kuwait, a choice that would minimize risk, albeit at the sacrifice of some power projection. Such a debate would be fruitful and help inform our current negotiations with Baghdad over the future status of American forces.

But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain. According to the Politico, they have found it: “Dems to hammer McCain for ‘100 years.’ ”



The device? Charge that McCain is calling for a hundred years of war. Hence:

“He (McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq” (Barack Obama, Feb. 19).

“We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years” (Obama, Feb. 26).

“He’s (McCain) willing to keep this war going for 100 years” (Hillary Clinton, March 17).

“What date between now and the election in November will he (McCain) drop this promise of a 100-year war in Iraq?” (Chris Matthews, March 4).

Why, even a CNN anchor (Rick Sanchez) buys it: “John McCain is telling us ... that we need to win even if it takes 100 years” (March 16).

As Lenin is said to have said: “A lie told often enough becomes truth.” And as this lie passes into truth, the Democrats are ready to deploy it “as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain’s national security credentials against him,” reports David Paul Kuhn of the Politico.

Hence: A Howard Dean fundraising letter charging McCain with seeking “an endless war in Iraq.” And a Democratic National Committee press release in which Dean asserts: “McCain’s strategy is a war without end. . . . Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq.”

The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonprofit and nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, says: “It’s a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage ‘endless war’ based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea.”

The Democrats are undeterred. “It’s seldom you get such a clean shot,” a senior Obama adviser told the Politico. It’s seldom that you see such a dirty lie.

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