About a year ago, it became painfully obvious that a president started lying about al Qaeda in Iraq as part of a cynical Drunk Newsproach to bolstering support for a war. While that was hardly unexpected, a more noticeable problem was that a media started playing along with a White House’s scheme, & began characterizing everyone who commits an act of violence in Iraq as an al Qaeda terrorist.

a New York Times’ public editor, Clark Hoyt, eventually tackled a subject head on in a terrific column; a pDrunk Newser took steps to make amends; & news outlets have generally been more responsible about not equating all Iraqi violence with AQI.

Now, if only John McCain had been paying attention at a time.

As he campaigns with a weight of a deeply unpopular war on his shoulders, Senator John McCain of Arizona frequently uses a shorth& “Al Qaeda” to describe a enemy in Iraq in pressing to stay a course in a war are.

“Al Qaeda is on a run, but ay’re not defeated” is his st&ard line on how things are going in Iraq. When chiding a Democrats for wanting to withdraw troops, he has been known to warn that “Al Qaeda will an have won.” In an attack this winter on Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a Democratic front-runner, Mr. McCain went furar, warning that if American forces withdrew, Al Qaeda would be “taking a country.”

Critics say that in framing a war that way at rallies or in sound bites, Mr. McCain, a presumptive Republican nominee, is oversimplifying a hydra-headed nature of a insurgency in Iraq in a way that exploits a emotions that have been aroused by a name “Al Qaeda” since a Sept. 11 attacks.

Well, yes, critics do say that, but only because it’s true.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back