Mark Ambinder has more
The context makes it clear that McCain is reiterating his position that the presence of troops isn't the issue; instead, it's the casualties they receive. The differences between McCain and Obama are clear enough; Obama wants a bare-bones U.S. presence in Iraq, and McCain is willing to tolerate a much larger one; Obama believes that the presence of U.S. troops exacerbates the tension and gives Iraqis a crutch to delay political reconciliation. McCain does not. One would think that those differences are a sufficient basis upon which to launch a political attack. Instead, though, in a conference call with reporters, in remarks by Democrats like Joe Biden, in a blistering statement by Rep. Rahm Emanuel, McCain is being portrayed as, inter alia, not caring one whit about casualties and deaths and chaos and certainly not about the families of troops who dealt with deployment after deployment.
Emphasis mine. In going out of his way to emphasis that casualties are a very important factor in troop levels, McCain is smeared as being callous and uncaring about casualties among the troops. It's like a Fireman giving a lecture about fire safety being called an arsonist.
I'm not saying the statement of McCain's wasn't problematic, that it was makes Obama's response all the more, well, clumsy.
Obama could have hit McCain and done it accurately, but he would rather take the easy way.
That is Obama's style.
Remember yesterday? Obama said the role of vetting a VP nomination is "tangential" and now today...
“Jim did not want to distract in any way from the very important task of gathering information about my vice presidential nominee, so he has made a decision to step aside that I accept. We have a very good selection process underway, and I am confident that it will produce a number of highly qualified candidates for me to choose from in the weeks ahead. I remain grateful to Jim for his service and his efforts in this process.”
Emphasis mine. Insert the expected "Is that the change Obama meant?" comment.
Hot Air has a roundup of links and thoughts on this.
Remember events like this when someone talks about how brilliant and new the politics of Obama are.
Speaking of brilliance...
It's not just blogs full of crazy that's wrong with the Obama website. There's also childish security holes too.
It should be noted that the Obama campaign is getting all kinds of credit for being “internet savvy,” much more so than the McCain campaign. But is it really true?
How could anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes on the internet not know that if you allow any random person with an ISP to post anything they want at your web site, you’re going to have serious problems?
And if they’re so savvy about the internet, why are there so many amateurish mistakes and security holes at their site—so many that they’re advertising for a web security expert, after putting the site online?
Like so much else about the Obama campaign, this notion that they are more “internet savvy” simply doesn’t hold up under close examination.
The whole idea of opening up a presidential candidate’s web site to anyone at all is fatally flawed, and shows a very serious lack of judgment.
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