Army Times: Your online source for all things Army published an article Sunday entitled "McCain on FCS: Flip-flop or Fib?" FCS stands for future combat systems. McCain apparently criticized Obama at a rally in Lee's Summit, MO for saying that Obama would "slow our development of future combat systems." McCain responded "This is not the time to slow down our development of future combat systems."
This doesn't sound too good for Obama, but follow me.
Flashback to July, however, when his campaign furnished McCain’s economic plan to The Washington Post, declaring that “there are lots of procurements — Airborne Laser, [C-17] Globemaster, Future Combat System [sic] — that should be ended and the entire Pentagon budget should be scrubbed.”
In fact, McCain has long criticized the over-budget, behind-schedule FCS program. In 2005, he blasted the Army for allowing the program to balloon to $161 billion, and forced the service to rewrite the main FCS contract.
Senator McCain, Flip-flop much?
According to the article, the Lexington Institute, which believes in limiting the role of the federal government to those functions explicitly stated or implicitly defined by the Constitution, says that
“McCain’s interpretation of Obama’s position is typical of the way in which the Republicans have twisted Democratic views in order to undercut their opponents and at the same time obscure the past positions of the Republicans,” Thompson said. “Future Combat Systems is the centerpiece of Army modernization. However, McCain has been more critical of it than anyone else in the chamber. Obama has been much more detailed and thoughtful in his comments about future military investment than McCain’s very superficial statements.”
The McCain campaign did not get back to the Army Times.
This is what Obama said:
McCain was quoting from a campaign video message from Obama to a liberal group that seeks to cut Pentagon funds by 15 percent.
“I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending,” Obama said in the video, recorded earlier this year. “I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of Future Combat Systems.”
So, Senator McCain, the military may not be seeing you as a straight-talker.