McCain's 100 Years

MoveOn.org has its first ad out for the 2008 election:



My first impression is that this ad will be very effective with people who weren't going to vote for McCain anyway. I don't think it speaks so well to people who value military service as an honorable thing, and I think plays into a "peacenik" stereotype. But that's just me.

McCain clearly said he had no problem with American troops being in Iraq for 100 years as long as they're not being shot at, and seems to have a problem understanding why anybody could have a problem with that (using Korea, Germany, and Japan as examples). It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that even that might not be a good idea, even if our troops are not being shot at. Or that it might be a very long time before we get to the point that they're not being shot at.

Somewhere I heard McCain's position on Iraq described as "We'll stay there until they stop fighting us, and then, since they've stopped fighting, there's no reason not to stay."

I guess television commercials are not about policy discussions.