The American Mind

The RNC has had enough of Democrats completely distorting Sen. John McCain’s mention of U.S. troops possibly being in Iraq for 100 years. Sen. Obama has made the distortion part of his stump speech even after independent observers like the Columbia Journalism Review said he was “outright lying.” (”New politics,” same as the old.”)

What pushed them over the edge was this ad from the DNC [via Jonathan Martin]:

The ad is as bad as Obama’s dishonest use of McCain’s “100 years” quote. The ad fails to mention McCain would like to see U.S. troops in the same situation in Iraq as they are in Germany and Japan. He specifically said he didn’t want them under fire.

Here’s video of the Q&A:

Specifically McCain said,

Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…

McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.

This afternoon on a conference call RNC chairman Mike Duncan and attorney Sean Cairncross discussed the party sending letters to CNN and MSNBC asking them to not run the ad. Duncan called it “maliciously false” because it “takes Sen. McCain’s quote completely out of context.”

Cairncross was asked if the RNC would litigate of the networks aired or continued to air the ad. Cairncross said they would evaluate that step but think a letter should be enough.

Taking it to court would involve the RNC claiming the DNC illegally coordinated with the Clinton and Obama campaigns. The RNC cited this Washington Post weblog post as an example of alleged illegal coordination. This takes us down the Mobius strip path of campaign laws where up is sometimes down and vice versa. It gets even more complicated since the FEC still doesn’t have enough commissioners to get work done. It sounds like the complaint would be similar to the Virginia Republican Party’s complaint filed last week.

From Cairncross’ tone I can’t imagine the RNC actually taking this to court. This is part of RNC’s counter-offensive. The Iraq War is unpopular enough as it is and Sen. McCain has tied himself closely to it. Neither the campaign nor the party can afford the “100 years” lie to harden into fact in voters’ minds. The letters to the networks constitute push back that hopefully puts Howard Dean and the DNC on the defensive.