Another ‘senior moment’ for McCain?

Seriously, the best writer in the world couldn’t make this stuff up....

According to Spain’s El País, earlier this week Sen. McCain wouldn't answer whether he would be willing to meet with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

The reporter asked multiple times; “Would you be willing to meet with the head of our government, Mr. Zapatero?”

Not surprisingly, McCain couldn’t offer a coherent and logical response;

McCain proceeded to launch into what appeared to be a boilerplate declaration about Mexico and Latin America -- but not Spain -- pressing the need to stand up to world leaders who want to harm America. […] “I will meet with those leaders who are our friends and who want to work with us cooperatively," according to one translation. The reporter repeated the question two more times, apparently trying to clarify, but McCain referred again to Latin America. […] Finally, the questioner said, “Okay, but I'm talking about Europe - the president of Spain, would you meet with him?” The Senator offered only a slight variance to his initial comment. “I will reunite with any leader that has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty. And I will confront those that don't [have them].”

Ooooookayyyy… you’re asked about a NATO ally, and respond with this strange answer about America's friends and enemies before proceeding on and talking about Mexico.

The reporter reminded McCain at least twice that she was talking about Spain and the Spanish Prime Minister, and yet McCain stayed on Mexico while rambling on about America's enemies.

Today McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann was hastily trying to defend his boss’s beleaguering answer by writing a letter to the Washington Post in which Scheunemann claims McCain did know who Zapatero was and was simply stating his refusal to commit to “a White House meeting with President Zapatero.”

Well… first of all, Zapatero is Spain’s Prime Minister and not its President… second of all, given our treaty-bound obligations under NATO, we kinda have to meet with him. So the excuse for the bizarre answer still doesn’t hold water.

We can either focus on the fact that McCain either had another senior moment or simply doesn’t know that Spain is in Europe, and NOT South America… which is horrifying enough.

Or we can focus on how the McCain campaign’s (so-called) foreign policy expert doesn’t know what position Mr. Zapatero holds… again, horrifying enough.

Or we can point out that this is yet another flip-flop from the master, as McCain said he’d be happy to meet with Zapatero five months ago.

My vote would be for all of the above… how about yours?

If McCain actually DID know what he was doing (and really, what are the chances of THAT), and was declaring his refusal to meet with Spain’s leaders, one has to wonder why.

Well… it can be summed up with four words; Bush. Iraq. Troop withdraw.

Remember, shortly after his party came into power in March, 2004 – days after being attacked by al Qaeda - Zapatero kept his primary campaign promise and withdrew Spain’s troops from Iraq.

This apparently pissed off “President” Bush.

Consider this from the LA Times, via ThinkProgress;

Zapatero’s first action was to make good on a long-standing campaign promise to remove Spanish troops from Iraq, to the overwhelming approval of Spaniards but the great irritation of Bush. […] Eighteen months later, there has still been no one-on-one meeting between the two leaders, and rhetoric has been harsh. It got so bad at one point that Bush refused to take Zapatero’s phone call of congratulations last year after the president won reelection.

So it seems very likely that McCain's bewildering response as to whether or not he would meet with Zapatero may indicate that he either too old and confused to be given the ‘key’ to our country, or he is interested in making Bush's grudge against Spain permanent U.S. policy.

Explain to me how a McCain presidency would NOT be a continuance of a Bush presidency? ‘Cuz I don’t think McBush got that message.

Regardless of the answer, we cannot have him in charge for the next 4 years.