Slate’s John Dickerson exposes two misleading quotations in the RNC’s demagogic “white flag” web video:

It goes almost without saying that some of the quotes from Democrats are taken out of context in a way that completely distorts their meanings. In the statement excerpted in the video, Kerry was not accusing U.S. soldiers of war crimes in Iraq. He was saying local police and military — not American forces — should be doing the difficult work of going into Iraqi homes in the dead of night, which is also the president’s wish. This is the sentence Kerry uttered after the one the RNC uses: “Whether you like it or not, Iraqis should be doing that.” Kerry likes to make his own selective criticisms of the president, but this libel is especially vicious in light of the insinuations that Kerry made unjustified accusations about American atrocities in Vietnam.

The video’s treatment of Barbara Boxer is just bizarre. “So there’s no specific time frame,” they quote her as saying, “but I would say the withdrawal ought to start now, right after the elections December 15th.” The liberal California senator has surely said something more incendiary somewhere, but that quote is simply stating administration policy. Here’s what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said two weeks before Boxer’s remarks, when he answered a question on Face the Nation about whether troops would withdraw: “No question. I mean, we went up for the referendum in October 15th and we went from 138,000 to 160,000. We’re now at 159,000. We’re going to stay that size roughly through the December 15th election. We’re clearly going to go back down to 138,000 after the election.”

Dickerson also exposes a shot in the ad showing a soldier watching the Democratic soundbites as manipulated stock footage of a soldier watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Here’s a picture of the original: