To bomb the wrong people:
Senator John McCain’s trip overseas was supposed to highlight his foreign policy acumen, and his supporters hoped that it would showcase him in a series of statesmanlike meetings with world leaders throughout the Middle East and Europe while the Democratic candidates continued to squabble back home.
But all did not go according to plan on Tuesday in Amman, Jordan, when Mr. McCain, fresh from a visit to Iraq, misidentified some of the main players in the Iraq war.
Mr. McCain said several times in his visit to Jordan — in a news conference and in a radio interview — that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni insurgent group.
Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”
It was not until he got a quiet word of correction in his ear from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was traveling with Mr. McCain as part of a Congressional delegation on a nearly weeklong trip, that Mr. McCain corrected himself.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. McCain said, “the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda.”
Will someone break it to Hillary that her new BFF and experienced candidate of choice can’t find his ass with two hands?
myiq2xu
It’s not always about Hillary.
4tehlulz
In before Wilfred, Israel, niggers, etc.
Also, Hillary could have eased a lot of concerns over her “C-in-C threshold” meme by nailing McCain on this. Fail.
Don
Jeez John, did you miss the memo? Raghead + shooting at Amerikuns == Al Kuh-eeda. There’s no differentiation between the flavors of Muslim – they’re all the same unified-in-freedom-hating group.
Jake
It is all part of a plan McCane got from watching Perry Mason when he was a young and impressionable lad of 60: Keep talking about Iran and Al Qaida until Saudi Arabia leaps up screaming “All right, I confess! It was ME, I did it!”
zzyzx
Anyone want to start up a concern troll whispering thread that McCain might be becoming senile? ;)
I’m watching Obama’s Iraq speech now. It’s not in the same league as yesterday’s, but it’s pretty solid.
4tehlulz
>>they’re all the same unified-in-freedom-hating group.
lulz. Though you know McSame is out of touch when Joe Lieberman shows more nuance than his BFF.
Lonny Martello
THE REAL TRANEING PROBLEM IS THAT JOHN MCCANE IS TRANEING WITH TEH FUCHING FERRETS. CINDY MCCANE WAS SEEN RECINTLY USING AN EYELINER PENCIL FOUR FEET LONG. JOHN MCCANE IS STILL PREPAIRING FOR THE INVASIEN OF IRRAN TO STEEL THEIR EYELINER MINES.
Mr Furious
Kleiman:
chopper
hey now, this guy ‘crossed the threshold,’ people.
the fucking threshold.
Wilfred
That’s right. And Lieberman is there to remind everyone that McCain has the official Kosher seal of Certified Muslim Killer Approved. Hillary has hers, too, of course.
Kirk Spencer
That “senility” bit may have more traction than you think.
Age is an issue to some people, and John McCain will be 72 years old this August 29 (born in 1936). If he’s elected, he’d be three years older than Reagan was at his first inauguration.
If he keeps making these stumbles – and this one’s not the first – and the age issue keeps being kicked about on the whisper circuit, the worry of senility becomes an intuitive issue.
And if he also continues to lose his temper as obviously as he did during Republican primaries, the whisper won’t be senility. It’ll be alzheimers. All on the whisper circuit, of course.
Kirk
Zifnab
Wow. Misogynist much, John? Why do you hate strong, independent women?
zzyzx
I put a wink there but I wasn’t kidding. I’ve been thinking about it a lot today. The clip of Lieberman having to correct him is pretty scary. Is Lieberman going to be McCain’s full time handler?
quickdraw
According to Karl Rove, McCain’s not senile; he’s mentally unstable. Or did he get better? It’s so hard to keep track of Republican talking points.
Svensker
How can you criticize McCain for this minor flub, while Obama called his own grandmother a RACIST!!???!!! Get your priorities straight people. No wonder the Islamofascists want the Caliphate.
John S.
I love this
piemilkshake filter!zzyzx
Apparently it IS starting to happen. From a Washington Post discussion:
Wilfred
McCain has nothing on Bush:
The man is just plain deranged.
Tsulagi
Yeah, but apparently he can with Lieberman’s. Assholes looking out for each other’s ass. So cute.
Yep, the experience thing loses just a little bite when it’s mixed with Alzheimer’s. Just what we’d need, 100 more years of the same big-picture clarity.
Dennis - SGMM
This is the man whom Hillary Clinton described, as well as herself, as being ready to cross the commander in chief threshold.
ed
It’s not always about Hillary.
Yes! Except that in this case she is relevant. Nobody’s fault but hers.
Any and all Obama v. McCain debates will be some of the most comedic smackdowns evar.
zsa
Ready On Day One?
Shit. McCain’s been ready for what … like almost 40 years.
Fucker’s started to get a little too ready … soft in the head … like grandma when she would leave all the stove burners on.
And it’s not all about Hillary. It’s all about Obama. See, Obama is over on this side of the threshold and Clinton and McCain are over on that side. Err, that threshold would be the “dangerously ignorant” demarcation.
Who do you want answering that phone at 3 in the morning?
Keith
Not to mention he admittedly has no expertise in economics, which is currently at the forefront of voters’ issue list, and thus far, he’s been BFF’ing with a bunch of war senators rather than econ senators on his photo op trip. He aimed at his target rather than ahead of it (not that it’s hurt his poll numbers yet)
wingnuts to iraq
John McCain, the surrenderer-in-chief, wants to bomb Iran to compensate for his cowardly surrender during Vietnam. Real American Warriors fight to the death.
dslak
I just read Matt Welch’s McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, and you’re not too far off.
The Grand Panjandrum
He’s been publicly fellating him for years, so I guess handler is a diplomatic way of saying as much.
McCain had his 3AM phone call when the AUMF came up for a vote. Epic Fail.
It isn’t so much that he looks old, he looks run down.
TenguPhule
Or at least not his *own* two hands….
Hoobert Heever
Could this be McClueless’ Polish moment?
b. hussein canuckistani
So where are all the McCainjugend who we telling us that America needed a leader with real military experience because civilians couldn’t be counted on to use that professional military judgement?
Brachiator
McCain is a strong, independent woman? Who knew?
Lieberman is to McCain as Condi is to Dubya.
This reminds me that during the Democratic presidential debates, Obama was mocked for his foreign policy inexperience when he suggested that the US might go after bin Laden in Pakistan without that country’s formal approval. Then, quietly, without much comment from the media or political leaders, we get stories like this (Unilateral Strike Called a Model For U.S. Operations in Pakistan):
joe
Why do John McCain’s trip to the Middle East all turn into travesties?
Do you think they’ll kidnap and murder a couple dozen people from the latest place he described as “safe?”
Does John McCain really not know this, or was it a “senior moment?”
And did you see Lindsey Graham’s face during that interview?
Dennis - SGMM
True that. I was killed several times in Vietnam. I am too modest to run for office so don’t ask.
ThymeZone
Dig it. McCain, the 100-year-war guy, who doesn’t get Iraq at all, is going to mop up the election against Barack Obama, because our guy can’t stand up to the heat?
This is the fairy tale that now dominates the churn at BJ.
John McCain is a train wreck. Trust me, I have been watching him for 25 years. You haven’t seen the worst of him yet.
ThymeZone
Hey, if you think McCain’s Iran-Iraq awareness is keen, wait until you see his economic policy speeches.
This guy is going to give “accident looking for a place to happen” a whole new dimension.
Tsulagi
Yeah. Standing from left to right it was Lieberman [I] , McCain [R], and Lindsey [
RG]. Sorta fit.dslak
McCain can’t run on Iraq, because most Americans are against the war. McCain can’t run on the economy, because Americans trust Democrats on domestic issues, and that’s even more true of the economy during downturns.
If McCain’s going to win this thing, what issue is he even going to run on?
The Other Andrew
I seem to recall a Democrat flubbing whether al-Qaeda was predominantly Sunni or Shia, a few years back. We can only hope that some high-level Republican went off about it, saying that anyone who doesn’t know the difference is unfit for office, and that Obama or a surrogate group will use the quote endlessly in ads…
Dennis - SGMM
You just wait until McCain gives his “White Men’s Anger is Justified” speech. That, plus the support of Hillary Clinton, and his campaign flier in every package of Depends will sweep him to victory.
rawshark
TZ, McCain is an idiot but I think we’ve been shown that that doesn’t preclude a republican from becoming president. It isn’t about the candidate.
p.lukasiak
What worries me more than his age is all those years in a POW camp. There is a strong correlation between stress and Alzheimers, and while the best known study concentrated on stress among older people and their tendency to develop Alzheimers later, this study of mice suggests that stress earlier in life can lead to an earlier onset of Alzheimers
Grand Moff Texan
The last time McCain was up to date on military affairs was over thirty years ago.
He has no idea what he’s doing.
.
dslak
Dear God. P.luk, will you defect if Obama wins the nomination? I really don’t know if I can stomach being on the same side as you.
Zifnab
He can vote for Obama. He’s just not allowed to tell us about it.
4tehlulz
Wow. Just when you thought p.luk couldn’t sink any lower, he does.
jcricket
I dunno what’s worse, that McCain is so blindingly, repeatedly wrong, or that Lieberman is the “expert” in this scenario.
And McCain’s age, just like Obama’s race, or Hillary’s gender, will be an issue this election. Democrats won’t go after it as hard as Republicans will the “not mainstream (not-white, not-male) characteristics of the Dems, but someone in the media will make it an issue.
Especially if McCain has any signs of repeated brain-farts like this, forgets his words, stumbles, etc. How well did that pencil-holding “trick” work for Bob Dole?
p.lukasiak
If Clinton was the same age as McCain, considering the kind of stress she’s been through, I seriously doubt if you’d be as offended by my citation of stress and Alzheimers.
dslak
P.luk goes even lower than the “You did it, too” route. He goes with “If things were somehow other than how they are now, you would do what I’m doing now, too!”
He seems to view everything through the lens of scorched earth political campaigns, and simply assumes that everyone else does, too.
4tehlulz
Yet more fail. Not everyone’s definition of “beyond the pale” is as…flexible as yours.
Wilfred
People in the know have this election sussed out to 10 decimal places. Lieberman (Ind -Israel) is the guarantee that Florida stays red (just as his presence in 2000 made it blue) and that the Christian Zionist crowd will have plenty of dead Iranians to alleviate their fears.
If Clinton manages to steal the nomination she’ll try to out-right McCain, listen to her Iran speeches and look at her vote on Kyl-Lieberman – but since Lieberman is backing McCain, she’s fucked.
Zifnab
Man, they went to town on Dole for his age. I wasn’t a big fan of the guy back in ’96, and I seriously wonder if he won the nomineeship purely on some back room nod – they could have run a number of other stronger candidates – but it was about the only thing anyone wanted to talk about.
This isn’t a problem with Republicans or Democrats, however. This is a rather pathetic reality of modern media. The news models don’t know enough to ask intelligent questions, the producers all get promoted from gigs working at E!, and the general public hasn’t learned when to just turn off their TVs when the shit begins to stink.
All I’m saying is God Bless YouTube. Finally, a dog riding a skateboard isn’t something you need to turn to prime time news to get your rocks off on. Maybe the general public will finally get its fix online long enough to discourage real mega-news outlets from trying to peddle the same garbage to such a wide audience.
SoulCatcher
Brachiator Says:
So wait…are you saying Condi is a man or are you saying Lieberman is sleeping with McCain?
Or both?
Tsulagi
That would be a sure winner, attack McCain over his years as a POW.
Would be a winner too for the Pubs if she were 72. Attack her as post menopausal and a crazy bitch due to her brain too old to function. That would carry the female vote.
Stratergery, not just for Republicans!
p.lukasiak
oh I get it. Twisting the words of Bill and Hillary Clinton to come up with a racist message is not “beyond the pale”…. but citing studies about the relationship between stress and the early onset of Alzheizmer’s in a discussion in which McCain’s and senility/Alzheimers is already being discussed openly without objection is forbidden — because I mentioned McCain’s sacred POW experiences.
I glad to know that the group is perfectly free to speculate at will on McCain’s mental condition because of his age — that there is nothing “offensive” or “wrong” about that.
Hypocrites.
dslak
Shoter p.luk: Some people who support Obama are assholes, too, so that makes it okay!
p.lukasiak
I wasn’t “attacking” McCain. I was expressing my personal reservations about him — and those reservations come from having an uncle who suffered from Alzheimers for the last 15 years of his life — and finding out a lot about how Alzheimers as a result.
p.lukasiak
no dslak. I’m not saying its okay for me to be “an asshole”, I’m saying that there is a great deal of hypocrisy in what in considered “beyond the pale” here.
Zifnab
Hey, it worked on Kerry. Nothing says “Clinton/Rove style politics” like nuck-sacking a dude on his strengths. If you remember the original “Manchurian Candidate” movie, it was based on a guy who’d been a Korean POW, after all.
Yeah. Ok, that’s enough. You’re running dangerously close to losing your seat on the MUP. In case you’ve missed the boat, Cole and a fair amount of the community have been trying to beat out the racist/misogynist wank-fests that the Obama and Clinton camps have been lobbing at each other. Please try not to go hosing down the community at large for shit you’ve actively engaged in.
Furthermore, the McCain comment was in poor taste. You know it. We know it. Put down the apologia and try actually apologizing and moving onto an actual subject of discourse. You can feel free to rip on McCain for his tax policy or his war votes or his utter lack of economic experience or the little (R) that follows his name or his Spectering on torture or his funny haircut. You really don’t need to play the “HE’S A POW WITH ALZEHEIMERS!” card, as it only reflects badly on you.
dslak
Shorter p.luk: Look, a jackelope!
L. Ron Obama
I wasn’t “attacking” Obama. I was merely expressing my personal reservations about him–reservations that come from 15 years of seeing black people portrayed on TV.
joe
Scary black church! Scary black church!
4tehlulz
>>Hypocrites.
You keep using that word, yet I don’t think you know what it means.
Wilfred
here’s Obama on McCain’s comments:
Correct, to the point, and just the right tone, as usual.
Wilfred
Oh, BTW. What Hillary was doing
p.lukasiak
I agree with you…
but then you go and pull this kind of cheap shot…
Brachiator
Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation.
It’s interesting to note that none of the tested mice developed any actual disease as a result of the stress experiment, so any conclusions about “strong correlations” or even about what the study “suggests” about Alzheimer’s in humans in general, let alone any speculations about McCain in particular, is a huge, and illogical leap.
You might stand on sturdier ground if you noted that McCain comes from a family that is long-lived and which demonstrates vigor and lucidity in their advanced years.
I was thinking more that Lieberman is a bit of a nanny/tutor to McCain, just as Condi had to help Dubya find foreign countries on a map.
I might have considered a sex angle if McCain was governor of New York or New Jersey.
ThymeZone
Erm, yes, it is entirely about the candidate.
The GOP has hung its star on a war promoter, a guy who doesn’t know economics, can’t keep the players straight in the Iran-Iraq situation, is the oldest man ever to run for the office, still talks about Vietnam, hasn’t had an idea in 35 years, and is running in a time of unpopular war and a sick economy that belongs to a Republican administration.
It’s all about the candidate. Mostly, about how much better ours will be.
Wilfred
Come on. I thought I gave her a break, The Guardian headline is: “Where Hillary Clinton was at key moments in Bill’s presidency”. Which is worse?
demimondian
Correlation does not imply causation, but does (by definition) imply greater likelihood of co-occurrence. In this case, though, I don’t observe McCain showing any of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, and if any environment was going to bring them out in him, it would be a campaign, with its disjointed settings and high stress levels. I don’t see any evidence of confusion of current location or loss of details, for instance.
McCain appears to be trying to establish a false narrative here, and we’ll just have to see how well it works. Four years ago, he’d have gotten away with it — let’s see if YouTube can maccacca him this time.
Cyrus
This, at least, I can agree with about him. It’s weird to read interviews with any candidate’s mother, let alone the oldest candidate.
rawshark
LOL. If it was about the candidate they wouldn’t be running that guy. They would be running someone who could conquer or at least adress all those issues. It’s about what people think is wrong with the country and which party says they feel your pain. The media will drive what it is that people think is wrong with this country. The republican will say they are the party of the regular folks who are bothered by the issues the media highlights. The republicans will then put a white guy with minimal baggage into a position to be sainted by that media. Adoration and votes follow.
ThymeZone
“They” aren’t running anybody. He is just the last guy standing in a reality show that started with 8 or 10 complete losers who couldn’t have won an egg rolling contest.
“They” (the GOP power establishment) never wanted this situation. Based on the miserable vote totals in the GOP primaries, nobody wanted it.
Tax Analyst
Well, that tears it…I will NEVER vote for a mouse for President, regardless of color or gender.
Tax Analyst
Well, let me clarify that a little, I will NEVER vote for a mouse for President, regardless of color or gender UNLESS that mouse happens to be running against John McCain or some other Republican candidate.
Hell, I would even vote for a TRANSVESTITE mouse against John McCain.
jake
Even if the trannymouse was your uncle, as old as McCane and had been a POW?
jcricket
mouse-ist!
Anti rodent bias!
joe
I imagine that the M2F play would help the mouse work out his stress and avoid Alzheimer’s, so I’d vote for him.
Tax Analyst
Well, that’s very hypothetical. Let’s see…have 72-year old uncle who is a tranvestite mouse who was held prisoner by the Viet Cats and endured several years of torture at their paws.
Hmmm…I probably would have stuck my head into a mousetrap and killed myself long ago, so I can’t really answer that.
Tax Analyst
It’s true, I think they’re all just filthy vermin, no better than a bunch of dirty rats.
And that’s just the Republicans…you should hear what I think about rodents.
AkaDad
When it comes to foreign policy, McCain doesn’t know Shiite.
jake
As April approaches, the wild and wily Tax Analyst becomes friskier. Soon he will build an elaborately woven nest of 1040 forms and the forests will ring with his mating call: “Reeebate! Re-ee-ee-bate!”
Tax Analyst
Curses…how could he have known?
Did you know that reading IRS Form Instructions can make you fucking crazy?
I do.
Tax Analyst
You know, Unc went back after the war…uh-huh, you could look it up. He developed a little comedy act and got a gig opening for this traveling catbaret troupe…Yeah, “Mousey Dung”, that was his stage name. Man, he had those cats howling every night as they travelled up and down the Meow Cong Delta. Everything was going really well for Unc – parties, laughs, the best cheese and everything…until the Top Cat in the main act developed a thing for him…didn’t know about the gender thing. Unc gave him some felinio one night and, well, I guess you could say the rat fell out of the bag, or at least his balls did. Boy, he made mouse-a-roni out of poor old Unc.
When he got shipped home they had to have a closed matchbox service for him – out of respect for the mouse’s missus, you know.
Well, gotta go, pretty soon I’ll be back here helping tax preparer’s finish up those tax returns. Hey, maybe one of them will be yours…