This morning on the Today Show, John McCain said the words "that's not too important" in response to a question about when we might be bringing troops home from Iraq. Click here to see a video of the question and answer or just turn on CNN, MSNBC, Fox or any one of those channels where it seems to be running on endless loop.
It was a clumsy thing to say, and I'm sure he regrets uttering those words…but there are more innocent interpretations than the ones being offered today by his political opponents. I didn't like it when Republicans were studying every utterance of Al Gore or John Kerry, trying to find some sound bite which could be spun as a lie…or an unintended revelation of the candidate's true sentiment. I don't like it when Democrats do it to McCain.
I've listened to a lot of McCain speeches. I think he's wrong about Iraq but I don't think he believes the matter of when our soldiers can come home is "not too important." Just as no fair-minded person thought Al Gore really was claiming to have invented the Internet.
Once upon a time, back when Barry Goldwater was running for the White House, he made a speech in which he accidentally left the word "not" out of a sentence and said something about how we should allow the Soviet Union to rule America. Everyone, including those campaigning against him, knew that he didn't really mean that, so they just reported the story as if the "not" had been in its proper place. Today, that Goldwater clip would be the number one hit on YouTube within an hour and you'd have thirty e-mails from politicos telling you that Barry's true, dangerous sentiments had accidentally leaked out.