"Tiny" Follow-up

There's been some blow-back in the last few hours over McCain's new ad -- and not just from the Obama campaign. In addition to the lingering issue that Evie blogged about yesterday, some are claiming that McCain twisted Obama's comments on Iran, specifically his use of the word "tiny" to describe the Middle Eastern country. Here's the quote in question, taken from a speech Obama gave in Pendleton, OR on May 18, 2008:

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.

Seems like the ad fails to consider the larger context of the comment. Jake Tapper of ABC's Politcal Punch uses stronger words, saying the ad "crosses a new line into dishonesty". The website TalkingPointsMemo also weighed in: "The new McCain ad ... rips Obama's words out of context so egregiously that it amounts to a distortion at best and an outright smear at worst."

Then came this from the Obama campaign, c/o spokesman Hari Sevugan:

John McCain is distorting Barack Obama's words to cover up for the fact that it's the failed Bush-McCain approach to foreign policy and the Bush-McCain war in Iraq that that have strengthened Iran and endangered Israel. While Barack Obama recognizes that Iran has been the biggest beneficiary of the war in Iraq and that the Bush-McCain fear of tough diplomacy has allowed Iran to spin 3800 centrifuges, threaten Israel, and fund terrorism, John McCain promises more of the same. If John McCain was serious about dealing with the threat from Iran, he would join Barack Obama's bipartisan effort in the Senate to step up sanctions on Iran instead of adopting the same tired, old Bush-Rove playbook.

Your turn... Was McCain out-of-bounds on this one? Or is Obama's Iran policy misguided? Or is it a bit of both?

-- Sean Bowditch

11:45 AM ET | 08-27-2008 | permalink

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