"Mr. McCainÕs record on Iraq is far worse than Mrs. ClintonÕs. He didnÕt just cast a vote but was a drumbeater for the propaganda Mr. McClellan cites, including the neocon fantasies of a newly democratic Middle East. On ÒHardballÓ and ÒMeet the PressÓ in March 2003, Mr. McCain invoked that argument, along with the promise that Americans would be Òwelcomed as liberators,Ó to assert the war would be Òone of the best things thatÕs happened to America.Ó

To cover up these poor judgments now Ñ and questionable actions, including his public boosting of Ahmad Chalabi, then a lobbying client of the current McCain campaign guru, Charles Black Ñ Mr. McCain is hoping that the Òliberal mediaÓ will once again be complicit enablers. WeÕll see. HeÕs also counting on the press to let him blur his record by accentuating his subsequent criticism of the warÕs execution Ñ as if the warÕs execution (also criticized by countless Democrats), not its conception, was the fatal error.

His other tactic is to try to create a smoke screen by smearing Barack Obama as unpatriotic. Mr. McCain has suggested that the Democratic front-runner is the Hamas candidate and has piled on to Mr. BushÕs effort to slur Mr. Obama as an apostle of Òappeasement.Ó A campaign ad presented Mr. McCain as Òthe American president Americans have been waiting forÓ (not to be confused, presumably, with the un-American president Al Qaeda has been waiting for).

Now Mr. McCain is chastising Mr. Obama for not having visited Iraq since 2006 Ñ a questionable strategy, youÕd think, given that Mr. McCainÕs own propagandistic visit to a ÒsafeÓ Baghdad market is one of his biggest embarrassments. Then again, in his frantic efforts to explain why he sided with Mr. Bush to oppose an expanded G.I. bill that the Senate passed by 75 to 22, Mr. McCain has attacked Mr. Obama for not enlisting in the military.

Besides making Mr. McCain look ever angrier next to his serene opponent, this eruption raises the question of why he chose double-standard partisanship over principle by not applying this criterion to the blunderers who took us into Iraq. Unlike Mr. Obama, who was 7 years old in 1968, Mr. Bush and company could have served in Vietnam as Mr. McCain did."...

NYT