John McCain's 100 Year War Explained

At a town hall meeting in Texas Thursday, presidential hopeful John McCain addressed his oft-repeated remark about U.S. forces remaining in Iraq for a hundred years, clarifying that, "I was talking about American presence after the war." You know, that era when we're using our massive military presence to convince the Iraqis that maybe it'd just be easier for everyone if they sold their oil to us instead of China. McCain explained that "no American argues against our military presence in Korea or Japan or Germany or Kuwait or other places, or Turkey, because America is not receiving casualties." Well, no American except for Ron Paul and the vast Internet army that helped him consistently outraise McCain in 2007. Anyway, McCain's explained that this whole "hundred years war" thing that this juicy soundbite is really just one of those rare instances in politics where one's words are taken out of context. And with libraries of direct mail pieces and TV commercials regarding it no doubt already gathering dust in Democrats' offices, maybe he's got a point. We presume that this will be the last we hear of it. AP