Another McThuselah Flip Flop

I've been working on a post in my head about the flip flops of John McCain; there are so many, it's taken me a little longer to write than I've anticipated. But in the meantime, here's one that was recently uncovered.

On military presence in Iraq -

John McCain, January 2008: "Maybe a hundred [years]. 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'd be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed."

John McCain, January 2005: "...I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence. And I don't pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be."

Now you can say that he's re-evaluated his stance on judgments he's made between then and now - which is fine - but 1) being in Iraq strategically doesn't change the fact that our military presence is resented which then makes whatever mission du jour harder and more dangerous and 2) if a Democrat had said this, the GOP and the media would be jumping all over this as a classic case of flip flopping and not looking at the "nuance" of the answers. So, if it's okay with the Republicans to criticize in this manner (because you know it's coming), then it's okay for Democrats to respond in kind.