What Matters to John McCain?

MATT LAUER: "If it's working Senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?"

SEN. MCCAIN: "No, but that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq, Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That's all fine. American casualties and the ability to withdraw; we will be able to withdraw. General Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are. But the key to it is that we don't want any more Americans in harm's way. That way, they will be safe, and serve our country and come home with honor and victory, not in defeat, which is what Senator Obama's proposal would have done. I'm proud of them. And they're doing a great job. And we are succeeding and it's fascinating that Senator Obama still doesn't realize that."

That is the exchange that has the blogs buzzing today. The Obama campaign is in full assault mode over the remarks, made by Senator McCain this morning on the Today Show. Senator Kerry, still remarkably the campaign's front man on military issues, said that Senator McCain's reply was "unbelievably out of touch and inconsistent with the needs of Americans and particularly the families of troops who are over there." Just to emphasize part of what Senator Kerry thinks the troops families don't need or want: "But the key to it is that we don't want any more Americans in harm's way." Yes, I'm sure wives and mothers everywhere are perplexed by such an out of touch assertion.

Other Democrats were quick to jump on board. Harry Reid said "McCain's statement today that withdrawing troops doesn't matter is a crystal clear indicator that he just doesn't get the grave national-security consequences of staying the course -- Osama bin Laden is freely plotting attacks, our efforts in Afghanistan are undermanned, and our military readiness has been dangerously diminished. We need a smart change in strategy to make America more secure, not a commitment to indefinitely keep our troops in an intractable civil war."

Of course, it's simply not accurate to say that Senator McCain said withdrawing troops doesn't matter.

"We will be able to withdraw. General Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are." - John McCain

"McCain's statement today that withdrawing troops doesn't matter ..." - Harry Reid

Interesting. In a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Senator Joseph Lieberman repeatedly pointed out that Senator McCain was being asked about whether he had the estimate, and that his response was obviously that the estimate doesn't matter, because General Petraeus will let us know how things are going soon enough.

It is clear from reading the paragraph or watching the video that Senator Lieberman is, of course, correct. If someone asks you if you have an estimate on when dinner is, and you say no but it doesn't matter, my wife knows, is it the case you said dinner doesn't matter? I don't think so.

What is even worse than Sen. Kerry's assessment that John McCain is out of touch on Iraq (yes it's hard to imagine anything worse than John Kerry accusing anyone of being out of touch on anything), is the DNC is showing that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, by rolling out an ad featuring the now infamous 100 Years war controversy. See the video here. I'm frankly in favor of their tying these two incidents together, as they involve the same degree of distortion on the part of the DNC.

Senator Obama and the DNC continue to try to paint a picture of McCain out of touch with reality on the ground in Iraq. The success of the surge, the victories of our troops, and the fact that so many are coming home is bad news for the Obama campaign. Senator Obama might have seen this coming, if only he'd visited Iraq once or twice in the last 800 or so days. The Obama campaign will no doubt try to make more hay from this comment, and will surely be aided by the press, but even with that assistance they face a signficant uphill battle in trying to convince Americans that Obama is more up to speed on Iraq than John McCain. A battle which, in my opinion, they ultimately can't win.