The Hundred Years Roar

The McCain campaign has been ratcheting up the response to repeated Democrat claims that the senator advocated a hundred years of war in Iraq, particularly comments by Senator Obama.

Senior Advisor Steve Schmidt delicately described Obama's contentions variously as "detached from reality," "old-style Chicago politics," the "politics of distortion," "nonsense talk," and "absolutely dishonest."

The Fact Checker at the Washington post agrees with Schmidt. "McCain has never talked about wanting a 100-year war in Iraq. ... [T]hey have twisted his words, by claiming that he 'wants' to fight a 100-year war."

McCain's exact words, responding to a question about staying in Iraq for 50 years:

"Make it a hundred. We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. 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."

"We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another hundred years."

"(McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another hundred years of war in Iraq."

The McCain campaign should keep attacking this point, not least because Senator Obama keeps bringing it back up, even as recently as this week on "Hardball with Chris Matthews".

"John McCain got upset today apparently because I had repeated exactly what he said, which is that we might be there [Iraq] for 100 years if he had his way."

We might be there for 100 years? I guess repeatedly misrepresenting what Senator McCain said became boring enough that Senator Obama has switched to misrepresenting his own words for variety.

Of course, Senator Obama hasn't been alone. Senator Clinton only two weeks ago claimed, "He's willing to keep this war going for 100 years," and Howard Dean stated "McCain's strategy is a war without end. ... Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq." Tying this around McCain's neck for the next, well, 100 years, is clearly the gameplan. Democrat strategist David Shrum brought it home with, "It's his Rev. Wright. It's his Tuzla."

That's a pretty good reason for the McCain camp to stay on top of this. Not merely to correct the record, but to make it perfectly clear to voters that this is what Democrats consider equivalent to Hillary Clinton telling war stories and Barack Obama getting his warm and fuzzies from anti-Semitic, anti-American propagandists for twenty years. That's a distinction worth highlighting.

John McCain said that an American presence in Iraq comparable to our presence in Japan would be just fine with him, and he hopes it will be just fine with you. The noise from the left is that he wants a hundred years of war. If Tuzla is the new "flat lie," then 100 years is more aptly the Democrat's Tuzla than McCain's. Too bad they've already got one.