On a day when liberals are defending Obama from Rev. Wright’s remarks on the basis that snippets were taken out of context, it is quite ironic that these same people are cheering on Howard Dean and the DNC for their new ad which uses snippets to totally distort what John McCain’s said about “100 years in Iraq”.
Bear in mind that the Democrats use of this statement has been exposed, rebuked and admonished by such members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy as the Columbia School of Journalism, the Washington Post and Annenberg Center.
Columbia Journalism Review, April 1, 2008,
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.
Annenberg Political Fact Check, February 8, 2008
“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.”
Washington Post Fact Checker, April 2, 2008
A more honest line of attack for the Democrats against McCain would be his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, whether or not he has a clear strategy for winning the war, and the feasibility of a long-term occupation of a Muslim country by the United States. Instead of attacking him on these grounds, they have twisted his words, by claiming that he “wants” to fight a 100-year war.
Here is what McCain actually said,
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.
Here is the Dishonest National Committee ad,
The leading liberal blogs were cheering and applauding Howard Dean all afternoon. Here is one from theDaily Kos,
Yes, the RNC wants to protect America from misrepresentations and falsehoods. So, what are they objecting to? The DNC ad that uses John McCain’s own words against him.
Did Josh Marshall really write this?,
Good Ad
Solid. Completely honest. (Whining from Republicans comes included.)
Unbelieveable. This guy is a “muckraker”, a truth seeker? Please. A profile of Marshall on Bill Moyers PBS website showed him to have both a healthy sense of self and a serious case of are kidding me,
“I think, in many cases, the kind of reporting we do is more honest, is more straight than a lot of things you see even on the front pages of great papers like the TIMES and the POST.
If the Republicans are so damn awful, why do they have to resort to this?