The McCain campaign has come out swinging against Obama campaign, calling “absolutely dishonest” the misrepresentation that McCain not only foresees a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for another 100 years, but that he wills it to happen.

McCain’s original comments come from a New Hampshire town hall meeting where he spoke about the possibility of keeping a non-combat presence in Iraq for many years—along the lines of the U.S. military bases in post-war Korea and Germany. Obama himself has indicated the possibility of leaving a long-term strike force in Iraq, despite his intention to begin withdrawing troops immediately.

Voices in the blogosphere denounced Obama’s rhetoric as intentionally misleading, insincere demagoguery and anticipate the Obama campaign will use this particular “talking point” to paint McCain as a war monger in the upcoming Presidential race.

Obama doesn’t need to misrepresent McCain’s position in Iraq to appeal to anti-war voters. Merely telling the truth about their dramatically different positions provides ample ammunition to sway voters on either side of the issue. While Obama has opposed the war from the beginning, McCain — vocally hawkish throughout his political career — was always a strong advocate of preemptive military action. Not only did McCain figure as a vociferous proponent of the 2003 invasion, the LA Times reports that he cosponsored an act in 1998 that made “regime change” in Iraq an official U.S. policy. He repeated his conviction that the Iraqi threat be eliminated in a letter to President Bush in 2001.

In light of the real differences here, it seems an unnecessary exercise in dissemblance and distortion to harp on such a paltry point, unless, of course, someone just wants to play dirty. For Obama, the self-styled candidate of political transcendence, this intentional misrepresentation smacks of the old-school politics he purports to eschew. If his devotees are following this hundred-years hoax, they are apt to be disappointed.