Philip,
How is what Romney said any different from what McCain himself said last January when he, too, spoke of benchmarks, etc.? And when the entire context is that Romney supported the surge consistently from the very day Bush announced it, how is it not just plain dishonest to twist his words around in such a way?
Now here is the REAL way that McCain adds utter hypocrisy to his lie. Suddenly, McCain is angry, just three days before Florida, about Romney’s position way back last April — but he has yet to criticize his pathetic little buddy Mike Huckabee’s far more open skepticism about the surge for several weeks AFTER Bush announced it, following by another couple of weeks of dodging and weaving. Meanwhile, McCain touts the support of Sen. Brownback, who pulled the Fonda-like move of announcing outright opposition to the surge, WHILE IN IRAQ, on the very day Bush announced it (even before Bush had had a chance to make his case in his national speech on the issue) — the same day on which Romney was offering strong support for the surge. You will, of course, remember my vociferous criticism of Brownback at the time.
So how is McCain content with Huck, and embracing Brownback, and ignoring his own remarks a year ago about benchmarks, etc., yet still able, with a straight face, to continue making the attack on Romney and even ratcheting up the attack to compare Romney to Hillary on the issue and to say that Romney owes an “apology” to all our soldiers and Marines because of that one, random, out-of-context snippet from a longer answer Romney gave?
And wait — I am not finished. Now it’s on to the question of who to believe, McCain or Daschle. You say the Dems aren’t believable because the charge is supposedly just now being leveled at a politically convenient time. You must not have read the full article. The fact is that Daschle put it in his book that came out many months ago, and it just went unnoticed. And the fact is that Daschle’s own meeting logs support the story, as did contemporaneous reporting at the time.