I received a very exciting email today from Governor Howard Dean titled, “Devastating new Iraq ad.” The note reads in part: “John McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years. He’s said it, and it’s on tape. But his campaign hates that he was caught. They’ve viciously attacked anyone who reminded the American people that he said it, including me. They’ve said that those who reference the 100 years comments are “deliberately misleading voters.” So we’ve taken John McCain’s own words — video of him saying that 100 years would be “fine with me” — and made a TV ad. There’s no confusion, no distortion, no misleading — it’s John McCain, on tape, for voters to judge on their own.”
“No distortion.” As if. McCain said in Derry N.H. it would be fine with him if we stayed in Iraq for 100 years as long as no U.S. troops were being injured or killed — as in, for example, our bases in Turkey. To the best of my knowledge that is still his position. The DNC conveniently edited his caveat out of their ad and made it look as if he wants 100 more years of the current fiasco. That may be the likeliest result of his plan in a reality-based world, but it is not what he said.
This kind of fatuous distortion is not going to win any elections for the Democrats.
Click here to watch the DNC ad (sadly, I can’t figure out how to embed it).
Here is McCain’s comment in Derry:
You can view a more extensive statement by McCain of his position here.
afertig says
if national Republicans got the kind of attention that we do when they make these distortions about us, maybe I’d feel bad.
ryepower12 says
What McCain said was impossible. There will never be American bases in Iraq where our soldiers aren’t under a constant threat, far greater than anything we know in our permanent bases today. Because of that fact, it’s McCain who’s the one that’s distorting. Let’s be real, Bob, and not be part of the McCain fan club (media) that continually gives him a free pass.
political-inaction says
The issue isn’t being in the McCain fan club, the issue is whether we’re in the “winner’s club.” To quote [pick your politician] the American people are smarter than this. They see the nonsense this argument is and it hurts nobody more than Democrats to use silliness like this.
bostonshepherd says
IIFC, didn’t Obama claim that McCain wanted “100 years of war” in Iraq?
<
p>That’s the sort of misquoting which helps to blunt whatever attack ad the DNC airs.
<
p>I’m glad BMG had a clip of McCain’s exact words. They’re not extreme in the least … haven’t we been in S. Korea, Germany, Guam, Okinawa, the Philippines, blah blah blah going on 60 years? This has been long-standing US policy with which most Americans probably agree.
<
p>What’s the big deal about 50 or 100 years basing in Iraq?
<
p>As long as progressives try to spin McCain’s words, and policy position, into something it isn’t, you only shoot yourselves in the foot.
<
p>Keep up the good work.
joeltpatterson says
One of these things is not like the other.
One of these things just doesn’t belong.
One of these things is not like the other.
The rest of these things don’t have frequent carbombings.
<
p>McCain was using one of the great tactics of deceiving the public: put together two things so they are equal in the listeners’ mind.
<
p>As with Bush trying to conflate Iraq and Al Qaeda,
<
p>
It’s how to catapult the propoganda.
<
p>McCain wanted this war. And McCain called for a surge of troops before Bush announced that plan. And McCain went walking in an Iraqi market with bulletproof vest, helicopters and armed troops protecting him. So McCain knows that Iraqis are nowhere near accepting a U.S. occupation/troop presence as with Korea, Germany, and the rest of that list.
<
p>But McCain pretended as though we could keep troops there without any daily danger of IEDs or snipers. His hypothetical is absurd.
<
p>Don’t carry McCain’s water for him.
ryepower12 says
don’t you think there are some subtle differences between S. Korea, Germany, Guam, Okinawa, the Phillippines, etc… such as the fact that, for decades, those countries wanted us there?
<
p>Having permanent bases in Iraq would have been tantamount to trying to have permanent bases in Vietnam. Ain’t going to happen. As I said before, the only one spinning is McCain – and sadly, he’s spinning in the grave of over 4,000 US soldier and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
iippllyykk says
Just now, I thought McCain is going to cut taxes for the wealthy and their increased wealth will trickle down to everybody else so stop your whining and do as he suggests. But now, I think he is still busy with the policy staying in Iraq. How can anyone vote for McSame? Now, I think the standpoint in the book “Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t” is absolutely right: http://dealstudio.com/searchde… , Read that? Make It 100? Ridiculous!
hlpeary says
the DNC is becoming the gang that couldn’t shoot straight…taking a win year and turning it into mush…
joeltpatterson says
Check it out.
charley-on-the-mta says
figuring exactly what Bob’s point is.
<
p>-McCain thinks it’s OK if we’re in Iraq indefinitely, as long as no troops are being shot at or killed, right?
<
p>-Troops are currently in Iraq, being shot at and sometimes killed.
<
p>-McCain has no plan to exit Iraq.
<
p>-Therefore, troops will continue to be shot at and killed.
<
p>I don’t see any meaningful distortion in the ad. None.
bob-neer says
In the clip excerpted in the DNC ad McCain does not say he wants to stay in Iraq under current circumstances. That’s your inference (Josh Marshall makes the same inference, with lots of compelling support, as Joel notes above). McCain may have indeed have said as much elsewhere, but he doesn’t say that here.
<
p>In fact, here he suggests quite the opposite: that the only way we should stay in Iraq is if no U.S. soldiers are getting killed or injured.
<
p>You may think this is obtuse: it is obvious that staying in Iraq means staying there in war. Very well, but that is not what McCain says in this clip. Taking his words out of context to try to make him say something that he did not say just muddies the waters and, ultimately, weakens the attack, in my opinion.
johnt001 says
The full context of McCain’s position is that we need to keep troops in a country where Al Qaeda is regrouping and planning attacks on the US. Those troops would be a constant target for such a greoup of terrorists, be they Al Qaeda or any other of the myriad groups blowing up car bombs over there, so there’s no possible way we can reach a point where our troops are not getting killed on a daily basis.
<
p>McCain said 100 years is fine with him – an off-the-cuff straight talk moment, I’m guessing – and using his own words against him, especially when the full context doesn’t make it any clearer, is fine.
bluestateblues says
for the DNC ad might have been McCain singing (in that weird monotone)
<
p>Bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb, bomb Iran…
<
p>Making a joke out of promoting the unprovoked attack of yet another country demonstrates warmongering at its pinnacle, don’t you think?
<
p>IMO, turning McCain’s own joke into a joke on him would have made for a more biting ad.