One speech line Wednesday night was sure to leave some observers scratching their heads. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, widely reported last week to have been on Obama’s short list for vice president, began by saying that Obama shared the American value of being “willing to sacrifice to strengthen our society.”
Then came the head-scratcher: “For over two decades, he has lived [those values] through public service.” By any measure, even if one includes Obama’s work as a community organizer, Reed’s arithmetic is off by at least six years.
Reed has a reputation as a straight shooter, but at least one other claim in his speech seemed to miss the mark. “For eight years,” he said, “John McCain has fallen in line with every one of George Bush’s national security decisions.” That claim would come as news for everybody who heard McCain blast Bush and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld regularly from the late summer of 2003 through the end of 2006 for their “light footprint” strategy in Iraq. McCain even called for Rumsfeld’s resignation.
