100 Years Roar II: A New Kind Of Misquote
Caleb Howe
Last week I wrote about the flap over Senator McCain's now infamous "100 years" answer to a question about staying in Iraq for fifty years. Although a number of Democrats have cited the comment, I pointed out that Senator Obama in particular had repeatedly made the false assertion that Senator McCain had advocated for 100 years of war in Iraq, and then subsequently said that wasn't what he said ... about what he said ... I said.
Once again for clarity, here is Senator McCain's original comment:
"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."
Senator Obama has called for new kind of politics for America. So one can't help wonder about what's going on at Obama HQ, considering the latest developments on the "100 years roar." This morning on NBC, Meredith Viera asked Senator Obama "are you willing to admit that you've distorted his [McCain's] statements?" His reply?
Senator Obama responded:
"No. That's not accurate, Meredith. We can pull up the quotes on Youtube. What John McCain was saying was, that he was happy to have a potential long-term occupation in Iraq. Happy may be overstating it -- he is willing to have a long-term occupation of Iraq, as long as 100 years, in fact he said 10,000 years, however long it took."
On Saturday, before the Obama campaign released a new kind of statement following Ed Schultz's redefining of the word warmonger to mean anyone who had ever used the word war in a sentence, Senator Obama, at a campaign event in Montana said of McCain, "He wants to continue this war in Iraq maybe for another 100 years." Again, that's just this past Saturday. The Saturday after Senator Obama told 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."
Be there. War. Obviously the difference is small. For example, this weekend I'm planning to war for my old Marine Corps buddy's birthday. Also, Sunday I will war at my church to pray for a new kind of 'my bills being paid'.
Senator Obama's call for a new kind of politics certainly resonates with a number of voters, particulary young voters. Those voters are planning to war at the polls in great numbers. However, that he can't seem to decide the character of Senator McCain's comments or, indeed, what he himself has said about those comments, makes me wonder if he ought to shop around a little more before settling on this particular "new kind".
UPDATE: Comments suggest the YouTube would be helpful for context, so here you go: