You Can't Make Decisions Without All The Facts

McCain and Romney went at it the other night about did Romney or didn't Romney support timetables for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Now this cut is being played on the internet and it's audio played on talk radio. But what you really need to listen to is the original interview. You can't watch the video of Romney being indignant and say "Clearly he is telling the truth!". You can't watch the video and say "Clearly John McCain is lying!" That's ridiculous. Being outraged doesn't make you innocent.

You need facts. You need to go here. This is the actual interview. There is video.

You need to watch Robin Roberts ask the question "Do you believe that there should be a timetable in withdrawing the troops?"

You need to watch Romney answer "Well, there's no question - but that the President and - Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're gonna be gone. You wanna have a series of things you wanna see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police and the leadership of the, of the Iraqi government."

Anderson Cooper said Romney's answer was "open to interpretation"

McCain is saying the answer should have been "No". Certainly it would have been more clear, huh?

Mitt clearly says he favors "private" timetables. McCain says "Mitt favored timetables" Where is the lie?

When I watched Mitt in the cut from the debate the other night, I didn't see righteous indignation at having McCain lie about him. I saw Romney seething at being caught. I see a smiling relaxed McCain who knows he's right. Romney was waffling back in April because he wasn't sure which way the Surge would go. Romney tried to play both sides of the coin and he's being called on it. Mitt said that timetables should be secret. He didn't say *no* timetables. What McCain has said is you fight until you win. McCain called Romney out on talking out of both sides of his mouth. That's not a lie.

You really can't discuss this issue if you don't watch the video. It's like when people would say something about the 9/11 Commission Report......I would say "Have you read it?" If they said no, I would say "Then you can't discuss it with me."