(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) never said it would be "fine" with him to fight the Iraq War for 100 years. But that's what a new ad from the Democratic National Committee suggests.

On Monday, the Republican National Committee blasted the anti-McCain ad as inaccurate and malicious and urged cable TV networks not to run it.

According to the RNC, the advertisement takes Sen. McCain's quotation out of context and compounds the damage by pairing it with combat images.

"Clearly, this ad is just another attempt by the DNC to mischaracterize and distort Senator McCain's positions and statements." said Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Robert "Mike" Duncan. "It is unquestionable that the DNC is deliberately misleading the American people about what Senator McCain actually said. I hope that any network would consider their responsibility to protect the American people from deliberately false and misleading content."

The "100 years" controversy has been percolating since a Jan. 3 town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire. In response to a voter's question about how many years U.S. troops might stay in Iraq, McCain said:

"Maybe 100. We've been in South Korea -- we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It's fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaeda is training, recruiting, and equipping and motivating people every single day."

McCain repeatedly has clarified that he does not foresee 100 years of U.S. combat in Iraq -- just a lengthy post-war troop presence.

Both the Clinton and Obama campaigns have seized on McCain's remark, suggesting that he "wants to fight a one-hundred-year war" (as Obama put it).

"To represent, as the DNC does, that this statement reflects any support by Senator McCain for prolonging the Iraq war is an outright falsehood," said Sean Cairncross, RNC Chief Counsel.

The RNC has posted an online petition by which McCain supporters can pressure cable news networks to either pull the ad or not air it at all.