Catching flak

Hotline's On Call has carried the story of a war of words between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. After McCain criticized Sens. Hillary Clinton and Obama about their vote for the Iraq war funding supplemental, Obama responded:

“And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago."

McCain jumped on the apparent misspelling in subsequent the press release, noting that:

"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."

FWIW, spell check in Microsoft Word for the sentences, "I am wearing a flack jacket" and "I am wearing a flak jacket" both escape without need for correction.

Interestingly, the word "flak" is an acronym from German. If Obama deems the criticism worth responding to in the future, I hope it's just as smarmy.