"Old-Style Chicago Politics"

Two senior advisers to John McCain attacked Barack Obama today for mischaracterizing the GOP candidate's plans for the future of Iraq. During a flight from Baltimore to Pensacola, the McCain spokesman repeatedly called Obama's statements "dishonest" and "detached from reality."

"I actually think that Senator Obama has done the country a great service on this 100-years comment," said Steve Schmidt, one of McCain's main message men. "Because now the American people have the information they need to have to know that he is not being honest. That he is being dishonest when he gets out and he makes that charge" that McCain wants 100 more years of war.

With McCain's alter ego, Mark Salter, standing by his side, Schmidt said that Obama is "deliberately misleading people" and is participating in "old-style Chicago politics" when he fails to flush out the full meaning of McCain's position. When McCain said he would support a prolonged American presence in Iraq, he was referring to a post-war support presence similar to the one America has in Korea or Germany, his advisers noted today.

But with the controversy surrounding the Democrats' characterization of McCain's comments reaching new heights, the DNC is now circulating an edition of the Washington Post's Fact Checker that shows McCain disagreed with an Iraq-Korea comparison as recently as November. He said this on "The Charlie Rose Show" --

ROSE: Do you think that this -- Korea, South Korea is an analogy of where Iraq might be, not in terms of their economic success but in terms of an American presence over the next, say, 20, 25 years, that we will have a significant amount of troops there?

MCCAIN: I don't think so.

ROSE: Even if there are no casualties?

MCCAIN: No. But I can see an American presence for a while. But eventually I think because of the nature of the society in Iraq and the religious aspects of it that America eventually withdraws.

(NBC/NJ's ADAM AIGNER-TREWORGY)