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.

What color is the sky in his world?

Former President Jimmy Carter was giving an interview with USA Today yesterday and said that Sen. McCain has been “milking” his time as a POW to his advantage at every opportunity.

Well, that appears to have pissed off South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who labeled Carter’s comments “absurd” and said “I’ve spent a lot of time with John McCain over the years and it’s something he doesn’t bring up in personal conversation. It’s something that you have to pull out of him just because it’s something that he doesn’t talk about. And so, does he have admirers that talk about that searing life experience and the character that it would develop? […] With all do respect, I think it’s a crazy claim.”

I’m… I’m sorry… his time as a POW is something he “doesn’t talk about”… seriously? That’s what you’re going to say??

Give me a break…

McCain not only has a long and storied history of discussing his POW experience… at length… but he’s also very well adept at doing so when it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

He did it most recently during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. After Leno asked him how it’s possible that he couldn’t remember how many houses he owns, McCain said; “I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair.”Aaaaaaannnnnddddd???? What does that have to with the question at hand? If Jay had any balls he would have asked a follow-up question consisting of; what the fuck does that have to do with anything??

It doesn’t… and it proves that McCain DOES talk about his time as a POW and he DOES use it, or at least tries to use it as an advantage.

ThinkProgress has a few more examples of McCain “not” talking about this POW experience:

“– Raising his POW experience to justify his love of the song ‘Take a Chance on Me’ by Abba. “A lot of my taste in music stopped about the time I impacted a surface to air missile with my own airplane,” McCain said to Walter Issacson at the Aspen Institute. (In fact, Abba
began recording years after he was shot down.)

– Raising his POW experience to justify his opposition to universal healthcare. “I did have a period of time where I didn’t have very good healthcare, I had it from another government. Look, I know what it’s like not to have healthcare,” McCain said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

– Raising his POW experience to attack political opponents. “Senator Clinton tried to spend $1 million on the Woodstock concert museum. Now, my friends, I wasn’t there…I was tied up at the time,’” McCain said during a primary debate.”

McCain uses his time as a POW to his advantage. I know that. He knows that. Everyone outside the traditional media knows that. Why do we continually act as though he doesn’t?

It’s logical that someone who is a veteran would use that experience in stories… but when one brings it up and the subject at hand has absolutely nothing to do with POW’s or veterans or the military… well, there’s something wrong there.

Why is it when I hear McCain talk I instantly think of Grandpa Simpson?

“We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I took the fairy to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter you'd say. Now where were we, oh ya. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because if the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.”

McCain is not only senile, but his surrogates – regardless of age – are as well it seems...

No way. No how. No Grandpa Simpson McCain.

Didn’t I already write about this today?

No, it just seems as though I did… but when you’re dealing with Sen. McCain, things likes this seem to come quick and steady.

Which segues nicely into Viagra as a political tidbit…

It all started when one of McCain’s potential VP picks, Carly Fiorina, was spinning for McCain when she said; “I've been hearing a lot about from women: There are many health insurance plans that will cover Viagra but won't cover birth control medication. Those women would like a choice.”

Naturally, as reporters do, someone asked McCain about Ms. Fiorina’s quote and responded; “I certainly don't want to discuss that issue.”

Apparently thinking the same thing I was – aren’t you supposed to be Mr. Straight Talker? – the reporter pressed the question and went further, reminding McCain that he voted against coverage of birth control and asking if that was still his position…

Mr. Straighttalker didn’t like that as there was a pause so long that another ice age would have started were it not for Global Warming.

After the longest pause ever recorded in national politics, McCain answered; “I don't recall that vote right now, but I'll be glad to take a look at it and get back to you.”

The reporter wasn’t buying it and pressed further on by reiterating what Ms. Fiorina had said, that, essentially, it was unfair that health insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control… the reporter than asked McCain; “Do you have an opinion on that?”

Then came the squirming… you could see in McCain’s eyes that he was hoping a hole would swallow him, or better yet, the reporter…

It wasn’t to be… so after a pause that broke the record for the previously longest pause in national politics, set only seconds earlier, McCain answered with a non-committal, un-informed response; “I don't know enough about it to give you an informed answer…”

Wow…was that a great thing to see…

The vote was a mere five years ago… so if he’s forgotten what his stance was, it points to, as Kos himself says; “age-induced mental deficiencies.”

Perhaps McCain voted against the bill for other, possibly valid, reasons… but the fact that he can’t form an opinion on whether it’s fair or not to cover giving men erections but NOT unwanted pregnancies, is mind-boggling and feeds into another of my thoughts about McCain’s candidacy.


You know I’ve said (more specifically Scott gave me the line and told me to run with it) many, many times this week; “the more often Sen. McCain opens his mouth, the better… as it gives a chance for people to see what he is really all about”… but one also has to see the plethora of mis-cues, gaffes, etc from McCain this week and wonder aloud the same thing I wonder; I don’t think he’s physically or mentally up to the job of being president…

Keep that in mind now, tomorrow, and every day until November 4th…

Does he EVER know what he's talking about?

In what is turning out to be a monthly weekly daily entry in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. McCain has once again shown his perspicacity of saying the wrong thing and/or sticking his foot into his mouth…

Not surprisingly, he’s done it again. This time it involved Sen. Obama, Iran, and Senate voting.

McCain’s campaign released a statement earlier this week that criticized Obama’s positions on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and their test firing of missiles.

McCain wrote; “This is the same organization that I voted to condemn as a terrorist organization when an amendment was on the floor of the United States Senate. Senator Obama refused to vote.”

No you didn’t John. While Obama was campaigning in New Hampshire, you were doing the same in New York… so you also missed the vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment …

Oops.

Yes, Obama missed that vote, but he did sponsor a March 2007 amendment that would have designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Unfortunately, Obama’s legislation never had a vote in the Senate because, naturally, republicans stalled it because only THEY can legislate terrorists.

Granted, the McCain camp admitted the error and tried to divert attention away from yet ANOTHER gaffe by their candidate by expressing McCain’s tough stance against Iran while tying McCain’s commitment to hating Iran with Bush and his (much-ridiculed) “Axis of Evil” mumbo-jumbo.
Has Mark “I can kill a campaign in 2 easy steps” Penn gone to work at the McCain campaign? How else can you explain the flip-flopping, topsy-turvy way they’ve been doing things lately?

Their candidate continues to stick his foot in his mouth and yet they don’t step in and try to alleviate the fallout…

They then try to distance themselves from the ever-unpopular Bush only to, seconds later, embrace Bush and his Bushy ways…

And no strategy is working for them… as evidenced by McCain’s trip to an auto-parts supplier yesterday in a Detroit suburb that has been hit hard by the bad economy.

McCain entered the store while trying to express sympathy for those affected by the state’s economic depression, only to have his message fall flat while it “landed with a thud, as workers sat in stony silence.”

The Good Ship Flip-Flop is reeling… and it’s gonna take a LOT to right it…

I don't want to say I told you so... BUT

As I sit here wondering how the hell Karl Rove can ignore a subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary Committee so he can discuss how he politicized the Justice Department… something came across my computer that further supports my post from yesterday: “the more often Sen. McCain opens his mouth, the better… as it gives a chance for people to see what he is really all about.”

Today, he showed his folly by responding to a question about Iran… or more specifically, the threat that Iran is towards the US.

McCain constantly spouts off about Iran and how they are “intent on acquiring nuclear weapons” while attacking Sen. Obama and Democrats in general, for supposedly not seeing the real threat posed by a nuclear Iran.

And following Iran’s missile testing earlier this week, McCain was at it again. Though this time, he was challenged on it by ABC’s Charlie Gibson, who interviewed McCain and asked if an Israeli strike against Iran would be “jusified” in light of their missile tests… McCain’s response; “I can’t know whether a strike would be justified because I don’t know the progress or the significance or the nature of the threat. I know the threat is growing because of the continued development of nuclear weapons.

Excuse me??? You say Iran is a threat… and yet you don’t even know what the nature of the threat is and then you try to trot out the ‘development of nuclear weapons’ fear-mongering again? I believe we have hard evidence and data from US intelligence agencies (NIE anyone?) that says they’re no longer developing nuclear weapons…

But since he claims to know what Iran is up to, perhaps the reason he isn’t sure of the nature of the threat is because he hasn’t had time to make it up yet.

Look, we all know that McCain has not done his research on many things… but the region containing Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan is the region that will command the next administration’s attention 99% of the time… and yet, he doesn’t know what their real threat is.

The more often McCain opens his mouth, the better…