John McCain fine with troops staying in Iraq for "a hundred years".

The United States military could stay in Iraq for "maybe a hundred years" and that "would be fine with me," John McCain told two hundred or so people at a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, on Thursday evening. Toward the end of this session, which was being held shortly before the Iowa caucuses were to start, McCain was confronted by Dave Tiffany, who calls himself a "full-time antiwar activist." In a heated exchange, Tiffany told McCain that he had looked at McCain's campaign website and had found no indication of how long McCain was willing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. Arguing that George W. Bush's escalation of troops has led to a decline in U.S. casualties, McCain noted that the United States still maintains troops in South Korea and Japan. He said he had no objection to U.S. soldiers staying in Iraq for decades, "as long as Americans are not being injured, harmed or killed."

After the event ended, I asked McCain about his "hundred years" comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for "a thousand years" or "a million years," as far as he was concerned. The key matter, he explained, was whether they were being killed or not: "It's not American presence; it's American casualties." U.S. troops, he continued, are stationed in South Korea, Japan, Europe, Bosnia, and elsewhere as part of a "generally accepted policy of America's multilateralism." There's nothing wrong with Iraq being part of that policy, providing the government in Baghdad does not object.

There are no Republicans that stand a snowballs chance in hell of stopping Obama, or John Edwards in a national election.

Huckabee is a joke. Romney is too loose with the facts. And Giuliani is hemorrhaging support by the bucket load.

Eight years ago McCain would have been the Republicans white knight. He was the candidate for change, and he had the young voters fired up. But that was eight years ago.

The John McCain of today is far too connected to a war that the majority of Americans despise and want ended.

It makes no difference how the surge is working, or whether or not violence is down, or how the Iraqi government is functioning. This is a movie that the American people are trying to walk out on. And they will not vote for a President who will not let them leave the theater.

John McCain made his first mistake by buddying up to George Bush, a man who used every political dirty trick at Karl Roves disposal to discredit him. That is a character flaw. If McCain had remained independent and a maverick he might actually be able to give the Democrats a run for their money.

But not today. Not today.