Obama's botched statement

"3000 Lives of the bravest young Americans wasted" -Senator Barack Obama in Iowa, on his first campaign trip, over the weekend.

Like John Kerry's botched joke, he says it was a "slip of the tongue" and that he meant to criticize the civilian leadership:

"Even as I said it, I realized I had misspoken," Obama said. "It is not at all what I intended to say, and I would absolutely apologize if any (military families) felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they'd shown."

This is puzzling to me. As far as I see it, he didn't say anything "insulting" about the military, and he did as he said he did: leveled a slam at the current Administration. But in the process of so doing, I think he in fact did "diminish the enormous courage and sacrifice" that our military has endured, and continues to endure. He sees the noble effort as "wasted" effort. And if Barack Obama has his way, he will make it a self-fulfilling prophecy by ensuring that the sacrifices were all for nought, by bringing our troops home before the job is finished.

I'm sure he honestly feels that the war is wrong and that the lives wasted; but now that he is in the Presidential race, he has politically entrenched himself into seeing to it that our effort in Iraq be an exercise in futility and meet with failure.