The Barack Obama team is back at  trying to take snippets of a comment by John McCain (that getting casualties down in Iraq is now more important than withdrawing troops) to suggest McCain hates the troops. Or is cold-hearted, or uninformed. Or all of these. Not even the left blogosphere is buying this one. People can watch the video after all.

This tactic of Obama’s, which we saw in the “100 days” fight, begins to seem like he is constructing a ransom note– take a letter from here, skip there and add a sentence there. On balance it did not work too well in the 100 days tussle, but you can always hope that the media will play along.

And, if you are trying to get off James Johnson as the hottest storyline anything will do, I suppose.

UPDATE: Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. John Thune along with McCain senior advisor Randy Scheunemann responded in a media call to the Democrats’ attack on John McCain’s Iraq comments. Lieberman said he was “disappointed by the reflexive attacks” and that if McCain’s complete statement is read it is clear that the Democrats are simply mounting ” another partisan attack to distort John McCain’s words, to distract the American people” from the fact that McCain was “right and courageous” on the surge. He said he found it “most outrageous” that McCain would be attacked for ignoring the needs of the troops and the sacrifices of his family in light of his father’s service, his own service and his son’s service. Sen. Thune echoed the sentiment that this was a “deliberate distraction trying to change the subject.” Scheunemann reeled off a list of things about which the Obama camp was “confused”(their term for McCain) including being “wedded to a strategy of defeat,” Obama’s prediction in January 2007 that the surge would make no difference and Obama’s vote in May 2007 to cut off all funding for the troops immediately.

Asked about the Iraq status of forces agreement negotiations both Thune and Lieberman voiced optimism that progress was being made. Lieberman said that “The very fact we’re negotiating is a sign of success” in that there is a functioning and sovereign government. A USA Today reporter offered that this seemed consistent with what McCain had been stressing — that casualty reduction was the highest priority — but queried whether McCain should be more careful. Scheunneman in fine Talmudic form dissected McCain’s comments, pointing out that the “not too important”remark referred to the fact that we did not yet have a timetable for withdrawal. The LA Times reporter picked up on Lieberman’s mention of McCain’s son who is usually not discussed and asked if they would be talking more about him. Lieberman had already left the call but those remaining gave a firm but polite “no comment.”

Bottom line: the McCain camp is attempting to use this incident to demonstrate Obama is playing Old School politics. Because the entire video is short and easily watchable they have an easier time than they often do making their argument that the Agent of Change isn’t changing much in the realm of gotcha politics.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 2:00 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.