Q: How should we deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions? 

A: They must not be allowed to attain such weapons, but it's really too bad that their influence has increased considerably due to our reckless invasion of a neighboring country. 

Q: What's your favorite ice cream flavor? 

A: Cookies & Cream, which would taste even more delicious if we hadn't rushed to war in Iraq, thus straining our alliances all over the world. 

Obama even squeezed in a shot at the Iraq war when answering a question about Russian aggression in Georgia.  

To his credit, Tom Brokaw managed to pry Obama away from his thoroughly-flogged talking points on one fleeting occasion.  He asked what the “Obama Doctrine” might look like on the issue of US intervention designed to prevent or halt genocide abroad.  Obama replied, “When genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening …and we stand idly by, that diminishes us.”  He also cited America’s “moral obligation” to get involved in such situations.  This position is defensible and reasonable, but it doesn’t square with his previous words and actions on Iraq.  As Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby points out, Obama himself said last July that preventing genocide in Iraq was not a sufficient reason to keep US troops in that country.  Evidently, he believes the war in Iraq is so uniquely terrible that the total withdrawal of our forces from that specific country trumps any possible human costs—not matter how grotesque.

Now is the time for John McCain to put an end to this nonsense about Obama’s supposed “judgment to lead.”