Here’s Hillary in a statement just now:

“While there is much to praise in Senator McCain’s speech, he and I continue to have a fundamental disagreement on Iraq. Like President Bush, Senator McCain continues to oppose a swift and responsible withdrawal from Iraq. Like President Bush, Senator McCain discounts the warnings of our senior military leadership of the consequences of the Iraq war on the readiness of our armed forces, and on the need to focus on the forgotten front line in Afghanistan. Like President Bush, Senator McCain wants to keep us tied to another country’s civil war, and said “it would be fine with me” if U.S. troops were in Iraq for 50 or even 100 years. That in a nutshell is the Bush/McCain Iraq policy.”

Here’s what we said in an editorial today on the 100-years hit:

Democrats are congratulating themselves on the political cleverness of the cheap shots they are taking at Sen. John McCain over his already-famous “100 years in Iraq” comment.
What McCain said at a townhall meeting in New Hampshire in January was inarguably true. He was asked about President Bush’s comment that we could stay in Iraq for 50 years. McCain replied, “Make it 100. We’ve been in South Korea . . . we’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that’s fine with me. I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day.”
The statement speaks for itself. If we prevail in Iraq and the violence ends, American troops can be stationed there just as they are in other peaceful, strategically important countries such as South Korea and Japan. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have suggested that this means McCain “wants to fight a 100-year war,” in Obama’s words. This is so obvious a distortion that it must backfire against Democrats over time, especially if they nominate Barack Obama, who has so loudly advertised his commitment to civil discourse (at least outside of church).