At the GOP Debate on Thursday McCain said that setting a date for withdrawal will mean a victory for al Qaeda:

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McCain: "If we do what Senator Clinton said that she wanted to do night before last, and that’s wave the white flag of surrender and set a date for withdrawal, then we will have expenses, my friends, in American blood and treasure, because Al Qaida will then have won."

Yet, when we had a Democrat in the White House McCain repeatedly argued for bringing the troops home regardless of the consequences:

1994 — “The right course of action is to make preparations as quickly as possible to bring our people home. It does not mean as soon as order is restored to Haiti, it doesn't mean as soon as Democracy is flourishing in Haiti, it doesn't mean as soon as we've established a viable nation in Haiti, as soon as possible means as soon as we can get out of Haiti without losing any American lives."

1993 — “Date certain, Mr. President, are not the criteria here. What's the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia. And if we don't do that, and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured, because we stayed too long, longer than necessary, then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home as quickly and safely as possible.”

There you have it. McCain's newfound surrender-phobia is a partisan fabrication, or else it's time to question his sanity, or possibly both. In any case, the US most certainly does not need to keep a military presence in Iraq for a 100 or 10,000 more years just so McCain won't call the troops losers and try to figuratively pin a victory medal on a terrorist group. It's past time we declare victory (didn't we already?) and start bringing our troops home. And when we do al Qaeda will have won nada unless some partisan dissembler like McCain tries to declare different.

The wheels came off the Straight-Talk Express a long time ago, so it's about time the msm began to notice. Even the Moonie Times has begun figuring out what we've known all along, that McCain's so-called 'straight-talk' is anything but.