Campaign Misstatements

[RunInRed 16,492]

Since every Obama misstatement is highlighted by TM and others....a little fair and balanced coverage for the board:

Barack Obama, enduring persistent taunts from John McCain for not visiting Iraq in more than two years, may have found an opening to fire back after McCain seemed to get the facts wrong about U.S. troop levels in Iraq.

McCain touched off a firestorm Thursday evening when he said in Wisconsin: “We have drawn down to pre-surge levels.”

But U.S. troop levels are not yet down to where they were before President Bush’s troop increase last year. And Obama’s supporters piled on McCain for the apparent mistake.

“If you don’t know the numbers of troops, it’s very difficult to make a judgment on whether they’re overextended,” Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry told reporters Friday morning. “It raises serious questions about his comprehension of this challenge.”

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, also an Obama supporter, said, “I assume Senator McCain just doesn’t know the facts here.”

McCain responded Friday at a news conference in Milwaukee, Wis., by denying he misspoke, saying he was looking ahead to July when troop numbers are expected to return to their previous levels. The campaign argued he meant most of the troops that took part in the surge are no longer deployed to Iraq, which is accurate.

“I said we have drawn down, and we have drawn down,” McCain said. “We’ve drawn down three of the five brigades. We’ve drawn down the Marines. The rest of them will be home at the end of July. That’s just the facts and those were the facts I stated.”

And Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a McCain backer, accused the Obama campaign of deflecting attention from Obama’s calls for withdrawal even though the existing troop strategy has curbed violence — and from the fact Obama hasn’t been to Iraq in two years.

Kerry said that Obama would be “well served” to travel to Iraq at some point, provided it’s more than just a political campaign stop.

But even Kyl admitted McCain had slipped up when he said troops were at pre-surge levels.

“John McCain knows that’s not true. He misspoke. So?” he said.

Randy Scheunemann, a McCain foreign policy adviser, said there may be a difference between McCain’s statement and the actual troop level in Iraq now, but the difference is “so minuscule that I’m not sure it rises to the level of nitpicking.”

Obama seized on McCain’s insistence that he didn’t misspeak. “Today, Sen. McCain refused to correct his mistake,” Obama said in remarks prepared for a rally Friday in Great Falls, Mont. “Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake.”

There were 15 combat brigades in Iraq before the increase began. Five were added. The United States has been reducing numbers since December, and there are 17 brigades currently in Iraq. The level is expected to return to 15 in July.

Prior to the increase, there were about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. At the height of the surge, there were 170,000 troops — but the current level is still 154,000, or 14,000 above pre-surge levels.

McCain did back down, though, after he was criticized for politicizing the military by including a photo of himself and Gen. David Petraeus in a fundraising e-mail that blasts Obama for not visiting Iraq since January 2006.

Asked Friday if he thought the use of Petraeus’ image was appropriate, McCain said: “No. It won’t happen again.”

Meanwhile, Obama and other Democrats don’t appear ready to let McCain forget his quote on troop levels.

“The McCain campaign still can’t explain why John McCain could be so clearly and factually wrong in stating that our troops are at ‘pre-surge’ levels,” Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement.

And Democratic National Committee spokesman Damien LaVera released a statement questioning whether voters can trust McCain.

“John McCain is now trying to claim he didn’t mislead the public about troop levels,” LaVera said. “Either John McCain doesn’t know the facts on the ground in Iraq or he is continuing the Bush Administration’s pattern of intentionally misleading the public.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/30/ob...q-troop-levels/

[RunInRed 16,492]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZE8YiAz4o

[autigeremt 6,717]

Mis-statements will abound for both of these guys all through the season. This was nothing.

[AURaptor 1,126]

I've heard of pickin' nits, but this takes the cake. Stretch this non story any further, it'

ll snap back right in your face.

[autiger4life 3]

I don't think the issue here is that he mis-spoke. Obama and his wife have done plenty of that themselves. The problem is that he didn't admit it was a mistake and explain it was not what he had meant. Had he said that then stories wouldn't even have been written about it.