Oh No He Didn't

Did John McCain really just say this in Denver on Friday?:

My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will -- that will then prevent us -- that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.

After pushing aside the 'No blood for oil' bumper-sticker politics and painting its adherents as fringe lunatics, did McCain just suggest that they were right?

Of course after people caught wind of his comment, McCain started backtracking and maneuvering to say that he was talking about the first Gulf War, when Saddam's forces set fire to the oil fields.

But to say his clarification satisfied its intent would be erroneous:

"No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the Gulf War for several reasons," McCain told reporters.

One reason was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, he said. "But also we didn't want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it's more important than any other part of the world," he said.

"If the word `again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean," McCain said.

In essence, 'No, I didn't say we went to fight for oil, I said we need to eliminate the need for the oil so we won't have to fight for it.'

If there's a difference other than semantically, I'm missing it.

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