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When I was walking out of the Obama speech this afternoon, I began to wonder whether there was a danger that McCain's comments in New Hampshire about being fine with a 100-year U.S. presence in Iraq would come back to haunt him in the general election like John Kerry's infamous, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

In 2004, Kerry's complicated legislative explanation for his statement didn't matter, because the remark fit in perfectly with the narrative that he was a flip-flopper at a time when a nation at war needed a strong commander in chief who would stick to his convictions. Even though McCain's reasoning makes sense--that we still have troops in Japan and South Korea, but few people make a fuss, because there aren't large casualties--the details will get lost in all the noise, because the statement reinforces the sense that McCain wants to keep troops in Iraq forever at a time when a majority of Americans want out. Of course, I hope I'm wrong, but Obama has clearly been hitting this 100 year war thing hard.

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Iraq