The Sunshine Empire

This morning in response to a question from a television interviewer, Senator John McCain stated that it was, “not that important” when American troops come home from Iraq. The liberal blogesphere has been abuzz about this latest in a series of gaffs by the presumptive Republican nominee. Yet in the interest of fairness lets be honest about this and many other of these McCain senior moments. His comment was not quite as callous as it seems and was nothing more than a comment on his belief that the effort should be to reduce casualties and not focus on if there are people still there. That belief is debatable but not nearly the “let them eat cake” that some liberals are making it out to be. The same goes for his comment about troops being in Iraq for 100 years. He was not arguing that the war as it is should go on that long.

Now the paradigm of Japan, Germany, and South Korea is not automatically operative in the Middle East, but regardless of how these comments are being misinterpreted this is the political bed that Republicans have made with the media and now they have to sleep in it. The last two election cycles have been filled with third-grade literalism from Republicans when it comes to comments from Democratic nominees. From Al Gore inventing the internet, which he never said, to John Kerry’s “I voted for the $67 billion before I voted against it.” Now anyone with a high school education is able to pick up nuance, and now Republicans are begging for it.