McCain Calls Terrorists Freedom Fighters

Something which I myself did not notice during the debate, but Radley Balko has pointed out is that during the debate, McCain made the following remark:

First of all, I won’t repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region.

And the result over time was the Taliban, Al Qaida, and a lot of the difficulties we are facing today. So we can’t ignore those lessons of history.

These "freedom fighters" included Osama and the Taliban.  While it is true that we left them hanging around with a lot of guns, and now we don't quite have peace in the region.  

It is also true that at the time they were fighting for their freedom, something that can be said of many groups that are also called terrorists.  I'm not here to pass judgment on where freedom fighters end and terrorists begin, but you can bet your ass if Barack Obama had made that comment Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly would be up in arms.