Washington Post Weighs in on Obama’s Distortions

April 2nd, 2008 at 07:47pm Matt DiBari

The Fact Checker at Washington Post has finally weighed in on The Leader of the New Politics’ repeated distortions of John McCain’s comments on the Iraq War.

At one time or another, both Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton have said that the presumptive Republican nominee is willing to fight a 100-year war in Iraq. When challenged about this claim on Monday, Obama referred journalists to the YouTube version of the Derry Townhall meeting. But the YouTube clip does not back up his case.

The Pinocchio Test

A more honest line of attack for the Democrats against McCain would be his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, whether or not he has a clear strategy for winning the war, and the feasibility of a long-term occupation of a Muslim country by the United States. Instead of attacking him on these grounds, they have twisted his words, by claiming that he “wants” to fight a 100-year war.

I’ve said it before, but for the Candidate of Hope and the New Politics, Barack Obama certainly resorts to old style political deception an awful lot.

UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: Lots of others are also calling out Obama for distorting McCain’s words.

The New York Times:

He offered those as possible timelines, but only hypothetically, to make his points that terrorism had rendered the region unstable and that he would support a continued troop presence if warranted. But the timetables, flippantly tossed out, have been condensed into sound bites by his Democratic opponents, turned into fund-raising appeals and mashed into YouTube parodies.

Many of the sound bites mischaracterize and distort what was said in Mr. McCain’s six-minute exchange on Jan. 3

The Associated Press

No, John McCain is not proposing a 100-year war in Iraq.

The future Republican presidential nominee and the Democrats vying to run against him in the fall are engaged in a debate of sorts over how long U.S. troops should stay in Iraq and under what circumstances.

That’s a genuine point of contention. But Hillary Rodham Clinton and especially Barack Obama have distilled McCain’s position into sound bite oversimplifications, suggesting he foresees a war without end in anyone’s lifetime.

FactCheck.org had debunked this back in February, but that hasnt’ stopped Obama or Hillary from deliberately lying for their own political means.

Tags: Barack Obama, candidate, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, iraq, iraq war, John McCain, liberal lies, Obama, politics

Entry Filed under: Barack Obama, Campaign Issues, John McCain, Military

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