The Latest From The McCain PR Agency

Time’s Jay Newton-Small tells us here that the Repugs are doing their best to tell us what “Straight Talk” McCain really meant to say at that New Hampshire town hall meeting pertaining to that “100 years” quote of his.

See, McCain meant “100 years” of something approximating our presence in South Korea (which has not always been joyful at times, though nothing like Iraq) and not, like, y’know, actual war for that whole period (though, as Newton-Small notes, I’m sure it would be news to Seoul to discover that we were, in fact, an occupying power).

The point of noting this, ultimately, isn’t to play word games. It is to note the fact that neither McCain nor anyone else has a clue as to how we may find ourselves in a situation in Iraq where, absent actual fighting, we are little more than a ceremonial presence, as we are in South Korea. And leave it to Newton-Small and her brethren to make sure we all understand what McCain’s wording meant, even though trying to “connect the dots” as to how we may achieve a circumstance described by the wording is apparently too much trouble.

And as if that wasn’t enough…

The GOP has been quick to accuse (Barack) Obama of crossing the politics-of-hope line in the sand with his continued use of this line. Perhaps they have a point. It is because of the Bush campaign's daily flip-flop attacks that no one actually remembers what (John) Kerry meant when he made that infamous statement (in 2004): that he’d voted for the $87 billion war supplemental when it was offset by getting rid of Bush’s tax cuts to the very wealthy.

Oh, so NOW you report that! How decent of you!

To be fair, though, it’s the fault of the Kerry campaign that that message wasn’t communicated in response when it mattered, though of course the media landscape for a Dem, while still tough now, was much worse back then we our dear cousins with those initials for names saw that their game of fluffing Dubya was still working well into the election.

But NOW, when the Repugs allege that the Dems are engaging in a variation of the same “voted-for-the-Iraq-war-before-he-voted-against-it” smear on McCain over the “100 years” quote (again, highly debatable)…NOW is when they tell us that “well, y’know, Kerry really didn’t quite say that.”

Nice job continuing to prop up the failed Bushco regime. As Stephen Colbert said at the press club dinner in 2006 here, pretty much articulating the M.O. for our corpocracy's stenographers…

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

And as you can see here, McCain is STILL having trouble with that little “Sunni vs. Shiite” thing.

Update 4/10/08: And as Media Matters notes, Newton-Small was fundamentally wrong anyway, not noting that McCain didn't even mean a "South Korea-like" presence based on this.