Crooked talk

I didn't watch the debate last night, and I haven't followed the McCain-Romney spat too closely, but from what I've been reading this morning, McCain has been involved in some seriously crooked talk regarding Romney's position in 2007 on Iraq.

First, some background. McCain started this whole thing last week when he accused Romney of advocating dreaded "timetables" and "milestones" for U.S. troops. He said this is the same thing that the Democrats want. (That's a dumb point to me since that's also what the majority of the country wants, but so be it.) This being a Republican primary, Romney became furious saying he had never advocated for a timetable for withdrawal, and was offended by the comparison. He demanded an apology.

Romney is correct. The quote McCain has been highlighting shows that Romney wanted "timetables" and "milestones" for the Iraqi government, not for the U.S. military. He wasn't advocating withdrawal, he was advocating management of a government. You can read more about all this here.

This all went down last week. But last night, McCain did it again. From the debate:

McCAIN: Then in April, April was a very interesting year (sic) in 2007. That's when Harry Reid said the war is lost and we've got to get out. And the buzzword was "timetables, timetables."

Governor, the right answer to that question was "no," not what you said, and that was we don't want to have them lay in the weeds until we leave and Maliki and the president should enter into some kind of agreement for, quote, "timetables."

"Timetables" was the buzzword for the...

ROMNEY: Why don't you use the whole quote, Senator?

McCAIN: ... withdrawal. That...

ROMNEY: Why don't you use the whole quote? Why do you insist on...

McCAIN: I'm using the whole quote, where you said "I won't"...

ROMNEY: ... not using the actual quote? That's not what I said.

MCCAIN: The actual quote is, "We don't want them to lay in the weeds until we leave." That is the actual quote and I'm sure...

ROMNEY: What does that mean?

McCAIN: ... fact-checkers --

ROMNEY: What is the meaning?

McCAIN: It means a timetable until we leave.

It's a lie. That's not what Romney meant. Joe Klein has a great take down of this over at Swampland and correctly compares this kind of twisting of words to the whole Clinton-Obama-Reagan nonsense. The difference is that that was exposed. The media should pause its love affair with McCain long enough to tell the public that he is lying. (Photo: New York Times)