● Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has suggested he would be fine with an indefinite US troop presence in Iraq for 100 years or more "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed" -- not a continued war for that long, but for a US troop presence there, the way the US continues to have troops in Japan more than 50 years after the end of World War II. Watch McCain make this comment HERE.

● Generally when Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has hit McCain for this remark, he has been accurate in his description.

● There have been at least three times when Obama has twisted what McCain said to portray McCain as advocating war in Iraq for 100 years or more: As recently as the end of March in Lancaster, Penn., Obama said, "you know, John McCain wants to continue a war in Iraq perhaps as long as 100 years." At the Cleveland, Ohio, presidential debate, Obama said the U.S. is "bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years." In Houston, Texas, on February 19, Obama said that McCain "says that he is willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq."

● Yesterday on MSNBC, Obama senior strategist David Axelrod said Obama "is not saying that Sen. McCain said we'd be at war for 100 years." I suppose that depends on what the meeting of the word "is" is. [We can pull up the quotes on YouTube.]

● Today on TODAY, Obama was asked by Meredith Vieira if he's willing to admit that he has distorted McCain's statements. Obama said: "No. That's not accurate, Meredith. We can pull up the quotes on Youtube. What John McCain was saying was, that he was happy to have a potential long-term occupation in Iraq. Happy may be overstating it -- he is willing to have a long-term occupation of Iraq, as long as 100 years, in fact he said 10,000 years, however long it took."

● It is accurate to say that Obama has in the past distorted McCain's comments. Watch a Republican Youtube video that shows Obama's words from today and from the past HERE

● It is a matter of opinion to say that voters are "tired of distortion, name-calling, and sound bite solutions to complicated problems." But it is accurate to say that Obama wrote that opinion in his book "The Audacity of Hope," and that he is violating his own stated aspirations. (Audacious indeed.) Because not only has he distorted what McCain said, he is not being honest about having made those distortions.

Really, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should be ashamed of themselves for libeling John McCain. As a growing chorus reiterates, their refrains that Mr. McCain is "willing to send our troops into another 100 years of war in Iraq" (as Mr. Obama said) or "willing to keep this war going for 100 years" (per Mrs. Clinton) are flat-out wrong.

What Mr. McCain actually said in a New Hampshire town-hall meeting was that he could imagine a 100-year-long American role in Iraq like our long-term presence in South Korea and Japan, where "Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed." See for yourself on YouTube.

The Democratic National Committee proposes to spend unlimited amounts of money to "tell the real story" about John McCain before Republicans can "start smearing" the eventual Democratic nominee. But the line of attack the Democrats outline to their potential donors in an e-mail contains some claims that are false or misleading.

● The DNC paints McCain as favoring "endless war" in Iraq. What McCain actually said is that he wouldn't mind a hundred-year troop presence "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

McCain has since said he meant a presence like the one the U.S. maintains in Korea which helps maintain peace though the war ended decades ago. And, clearly, given the transcript, it is what he meant. So is it fair that both Clinton and Obama continue to hit McCain for these comments? Obama was careful today not to say that troops would be at "war" for 100 years, just an occupying force (though in an email entitled "THE NEW POLITICS OF DISTORTION" the RNC was quick to point out that as recently as Saturday Obama did use the combat phrasing). Obama defended his remarks on the Today Show this morning: "We can pull up the quotes on Youtube," Obama told Meredith Vieira. "What John McCain was saying was, that he was happy to have a potential long-term occupation in Iraq. Happy may be overstating it -- he is willing to have a long-term occupation of Iraq, as long as 100 years, in fact he said 10,000 years, however long it took."

That’s not entirely accurate either as it would likely come as news to most South Koreans that U.S. troops are occupying their country.

McCain aide Mark Salter disputes my use of the term "occupation" to describe the U.S. military presence in Korea and Germany and, by extension, what the senator has in mind for Iraq. I think he has a point. An occupation carries a connotation of rule by the occupying power, and lack of full sovereignty on the part of the occupied. The formal U.S. military occupation of Germany ended in 1949, even though U.S. troops remained in the country.

A more honest line of attack for the Democrats against McCain would be his support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, whether or not he has a clear strategy for winning the war, and the feasibility of a long-term occupation of a Muslim country by the United States. Instead of attacking him on these grounds, they have twisted his words, by claiming that he "wants" to fight a 100-year war.

Ever since John McCain said at a town hall meeting in January that he could see U.S. troops staying in Iraq for a hundred years, the Democrats have been trying to use the quote to paint the Arizona senator as a dangerous warmonger. And lately, Barack Obama in particular has stepped up his attacks on McCain’s "100 years" notion.

But in doing so, Obama is seriously misleading voters—if not outright lying to them—about exactly what McCain said. And some in the press are failing to call him on it.

Here’s McCain’s full quote, in context, from back in January:

Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…
McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it's fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.

It’s clear from this that McCain isn’t saying he’d support continuing the war for one hundred years, only that it might be necessary to keep troops there that long. That’s a very different thing. As he says, we’ve had troops in South Korea for over fifty years, but few people think that means we’re still fighting the Korean War.

Nevertheless, back in February, Obama said: "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another hundred years."

And, on a separate occasion: "(McCain) says that he is willing to send our troops into another hundred years of war in Iraq."

The interviews show McCain is not advocating that the war in Iraq continue for a thousand years (or a million). But once combat ends and U.S. casualities dwindle, he expects the United States could have troops in Iraq similar to the presence in South Korea and Germany. That presence could continue for many years.

Clinton correctly described the first remark by saying "Sen. McCain said the other day that we might have troops (in Iraq) for 100 years." We gave that a True.

But Obama twisted McCain's words in the Cleveland debate. He said, "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years."

As we explain above, McCain was referring to a peacetime presence, not the war. So we find Obama's statement False.

McCain appears to be talking about maintaining a presence in Iraq, not continuing the type of war America is now fighting. He suggests it would be acceptable to "maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world" similar to that in Japan and Korea.