Democrats want 100 year politics of fraud on war

Charles Krauthammer:

Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted — "Make it a hundred" — then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: "We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so."

Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: "That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: "It's fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world."

There is another analogy to the kind of benign and strategically advantageous "presence" McCain was suggesting for postwar Iraq: Kuwait.

The U.S. (with allies) occupied Kuwait in 1991 and has remained there with a major military presence for 17 years. We debate dozens of foreign policy issues in this country. I've yet to hear any serious person of either party call for a pullout from Kuwait.

Why? Because our presence projects power and provides stability for the entire Gulf and for vulnerable U.S. allies that line its shores.

...

But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain. According to Politico, they have found it: "Dems to hammer McCain for '100 years.' "

The device? Charge that McCain is calling for a hundred years of war.

Hence:

• "He (McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" (Barack Obama, Feb. 19).

• "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years" (Obama, Feb. 26).

• "He's (McCain) willing to keep this war going for 100 years" (Hillary Clinton, March 17).

• "What date between now and the election in November will he (McCain) drop this promise of a 100-year war in Iraq?" (Chris Matthews, March 4).

Why, even a CNN anchor (Rick Sanchez) buys it:

• "John McCain is telling us . . . that we need to win even if it takes 100 years" (March 16).

As Lenin is said to have said: "A lie told often enough becomes truth." And as this lie passes into truth, the Democrats are ready to deploy it "as the linchpin of an effort to turn McCain's national security credentials against him," reports David Paul Kuhn of Politico.

Hence: A Howard Dean fundraising letter charging McCain with seeking "an endless war in Iraq." And a Democratic National Committee press release in which Dean asserts: "McCain's strategy is a war without end. . . . Elect John McCain and get 100 years in Iraq."

The Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonprofit and nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, says: "It's a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage 'endless war' based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea."

The Democrats are undeterred. "It's seldom you get such a clean shot," a senior Obama adviser told Politico. It's seldom that you see such a dirty lie.

Would the Democrat party survive without the politics of fraud? Its members have become masters of deceit because the truth is just so inconvenient for them. They could not survive an honest debate on the war so they have chosen this path.

I once had a Democrat operative explain to me why they did this. There are several reasons. It gets the lie out there, then forces the opponent to deny the lie which keeps the story alive. Finally, it takes the adversary off message and makes him explain something that should be obvious in an honest discussion. Krauthammer has called them out on their big lie, but don't expect them to back off. They are not that honest or honorable. Hopefully, McCain will figure that out before it is too late.