A press release touting a new ad from the McCain campaign. Let's take a look ...
The ad is even more pertinent today as Haaretz reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy views Barack Obama's Iran position as "utterly immature" and based on "formulations empty of all content."
Huh. Nice to see the GOP and the French getting along again. Note that those aren't direct quotes but rather second-hand, and the French government calls them inaccurate.
What else? It's an ad script, accusing Obama of not taking Iran seriously and calling it "tiny." We've heard this before. They're literally recycling the lies of late August. But this time, the McCain campaign actually includes the whole quote right below their ad script, so anyone can actually see how much they are taking Obama's comments out context. It's like I don't even have to try to show how disingenuous they are anymore! Here is the quote:
"Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela -- these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet. And ultimately that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war, and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall. Now, that has to be the kind of approach that we take. You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serio us threat to us, they wouldn't stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have to be bold enough to go ahead and listen. That doesn't mean we agree with them on everything. We might not compromise on any issues, but at least we should find out other areas of potential common interest, and we can reduce some of the tensions that has caused us so many problems around the world." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks, Pendelton, OR, 5/18/08)
-- Tim Fernholz
