Fact-Check: McCain's 'Dishonorable' Ad

Via Factcheck.org, we are confronted with yet another bogus ad from John McCain. The irony here, is that the ad, titled "Dangerous", accuses Obama of being "dishonorable" while using utterly dishonorable tactics to prove its point. The evidence McCain uses to back up his claim is the following quote from 2007 about the situation in Afghanistan:

We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.

Since that time, of course, the United States has followed Obama's advice, and begun shifting troops back to Afghanistan. McCain would like to have people believe that Obama's civilian casualties and air war focus were not true, and somehow a slight against our troops. The AP, however, had already written an article that substantiated Obama's point:

As of Aug. 1 [2007], the AP count shows that whilst militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can't be attributed to one party.

President Karzai had harsh words for President Bush at the way air power was being deployed. Well, here's Factcheck's final verdict on the ad:

It recycles a misleading, 14-month old charge that Sen. Barack Obama disrespected U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan by accusing them of "just air-raiding villages and killing civilians." It also misrepresents votes in favor of withdrawing troops from Iraq as being votes "increasing the risk on their lives."

One wonders why the McCain camp is hemming and hawing so much. Why don't they just come out and say what they're implying: that Obama is himself a terrorist sympathizer. Oh, wait, they already did.

Hooray for Honor!