Obama and McCain Camps Spar Over Iraq Troop Levels Comment

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Last updated on July 1st, 2012 at 06:49 am

Both the Obama and McCain camps are involved in heated exchange over whether or not John McCain intentionally distorted, or just didn’t know the troop levels in Iraq. The McCain camp’s defense seems to be to blame Obama, and say that he knew what McCain meant.

Here is the video of what McCain originally said:

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His campaign put out a statement accusing Barack Obama of weak leadership, “Clearly John Kerry and Barack Obama have very little understanding of troop levels, but considering Barack Obama hasn’t been to Iraq in 873 days and has never had a one on one meeting with General Petraeus, it isn’t a surprise to anyone that he demonstrates weak leadership. What informed people understand, John McCain included, is that American troops are not even close to Surge levels.”

The Obama campaign responded by asking McCain to explain why he got the numbers wrong, “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. They are not, and anyone who wants to be Commander-in-Chief should know better before launching divisive political attacks. Once again, Senator McCain has shown that he is far more interested in stubbornly making the case for continuing a failed policy in Iraq than in getting the facts right.”

The McCain campaign is going to keep singing this song about Obama not going to Iraq, not only because it plays into their narrative that Obama is too inexperienced to be president, but also it allows McCain to make the case things are changing in Iraq. The problem is that the American people have been hearing about how things are getting better in Iraq for four years now.

2/3 of the American people oppose this war, so please McCain, keep trying to sell staying in Iraq. These factual errors are becoming more common on the campaign trail for McCain. This leads me to wonder if he is intentionally distorting the facts, or is he having senior moments?