This is a good opinion piece because I found myself weighing the writer's viewpoint and deciding whether I agreed. Marshall quotes an AP ad as evidence that the wire service has bought into the McCain campaign's argument about his statement on Iraq and is no longer critically evaluating it. He provides a permanent link to the entire story and after reading it I would agree this seems true of the current example; more examples, if available would establish a pattern. He provides a link to more coverage of McCain's statements on Iraq including their context. and raises a valuable point: "If there is an unfair supposition at work here, there is a simple way to find out. Someone should ask McCain how long he's willing to have us stay in Iraq even if we are sustaining casualties. Since he believes it is in our strategic interests to stay there on a permanent basis I doubt very much he'll say that in that case he'd only be comfortable staying two or five or some other relatively short span of years. That is because he believes we should stay there on a permanent basis, ideally with no casualties but with casualties if that's what it takes." Someone should pose this question to McCain so that voters will have the benefit of the answer. If not AP, then Marshall or one of his reporters.