McCain Calls DNC Liars

John McCain has done something more politicians need to do. He's call the folks behind the new "100 Year War" ads airing on TV liars. And he' s right about it, they are liars. So who's behind the ads, The Democratic National Committee and MoveOn.Org, a (far)left wing 527 campaign.

Were the RNC to team with a 527 to run ads you can bet that the left would be screaming, and filing all kinds of paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission about it. The RNC may well scream, but they probably won't file anything with the Federal Elections Commission. The FEC is helpless to do anything, since Harry Reid hasn't followed the rules on confirmations for it. In fact his own nominee dropped out, having gotten sick of waiting to be confirmed.

At issue in the ads, and a lie repeated regularly by Barack Obama, is McCain wanting a 100 year "war" in Iraq, based on a comment he made in January. The problem is, that's not what he said.

(From the AP, emphasis mine)
At issue is McCain's answer, in January, to a question about Bush's theory that troops could be in Iraq for 50 years.

McCain said: "Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that'd be fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."

That doesn't read much like the script for a "war" if no one is getting harmed, wounded or killed. It sounds more like a strategic presence, like the 55 year one we've had in S. Korea, or the 60 year presences in Japan and Western Europe since the end of World War II.

We've already maintained a strategic presense in the Persian Gulf for about 25 years, with a base in Bahrain, facilities in the UAE, and since 1991, Kuwait. Adding Iraq, after stabalization, to the list of friendly to the US countries in the region would be a huge step forward based on it's location between Iran and other folks we already have agreements with.

Don't expect the DNC, MoveOn, or Obama to back off of their lie, if they told the truth about McCain's remarks, and contrasted that to their own positions it would make them look more like what they are, weak on security, and hopelessly clueless about world affairs or how the Middle East works.

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Death Watch Postponed

The death watch on Hillary Clinton's campaign has been given a reprieve, but not much of one. For every headline touting her 3 wins last night another, or the same story pointed out that Democratic delegate allocating made the victories pretty hollow. She won the popular votes, but really didn't make up any ground in the delegate race.

The Superdelegate, who've been flip flopping like, well Democrats on defense, are still going to be the key to the race. While Obama can claim droves have moved to his side of the aisle after 11 straight victories, he now has the shadow of Tony Rezko's trial hanging over his candidacy, which could flip them back to Hillary. Worse for him is the theory that the defense could issue a subpoena to have him testify for Rezko, which probably wouldn't help his standing with those superdelegates.

John McCain on the other hand won his nomination last night, and gets to spend the entire spring working over the Democrats, without having to worry about delegate counts or trials. While Clinton and Obama have to spend the next 7 weeks leading to Pennsylvania beating each other up over differences in their very similar stances, McCain gets to take pot shots at those stances.

With Rezko's trial starting, and McCain having sewed up the nomination for the GOP, the DNC has to be wondering if this year will once again be one where they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

This isn't a new thing for the Democrats. In 1988 Mike Dukakis held a huge summer lead over George H.W. Bush, then Willie Horton started turning up in ads all over the country. Like Rezko the Democratic establishment knew about Horton, and had been warned he could end up being the "deal breaker", but ignored the warnings. This time around former DNC treasurer, Joe Cini who had already been tied to the scandal 2 years ago, should have provided the warning, but it's been ignored.

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