On trail, game of gotcha escalates

In the increasingly loud game of gotcha, the presidential campaigns are trading accusations that the other candidate misstated facts.

Democrat Barack Obama's campaign says that Republican John McCain flubbed the timeline of the war in Iraq. In an interview with CBS, McCain said that the US-backed revolt of Sunni sheiks against Al Qaeda was connected with the surge of US reinforcements last year.

"Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening," McCain said in an answer that was not aired by CBS on its newscast Tuesday night, but was released in a transcript and in a video posted online. "I mean, that's just a matter of history."

But Obama's campaign pointed out that the "awakening" started well before President Bush announced in January 2007 his decision to send 30,000 additional US troops.

Yesterday, McCain said he knew that and didn't commit a gaffe. He told reporters in Bethlehem, Pa., that the surge was actually "made up of a number of components," some of which began before the president's order for more troops.

Adding to the din, a liberal media watchdog group complained yesterday that CBS spliced the interview to avoid airing the disputed McCain statements.

"It goes without saying that this violates the most basic tenets of journalism, and CBS should be ashamed," J. Jioni Palmer, spokesman for Media Matters, said in a statement. CBS had issued its own statement that it edited the interview "to give viewers a fair expression of the candidates' major differences."

Hitting back at Obama, McCain's campaign accused him yesterday of misstating what he said exactly one year ago that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, and other unfriendly regimes "without precondition."

Obama told reporters in Israel yesterday that he had said he would meet those leaders at a time and place of his choosing and only after appropriate "preparations."

But McCain's campaign pointed out that the question he was asked at a Democratic debate last July in Charleston, S.C., did not mention preparations.

Obama replied at the debate that he would meet those leaders without precondition: "And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them - which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration - is ridiculous."

It was only later that Obama clarified his position that talks without preconditions did not mean without preparations.