As McCain’s gaffes pile up, he can only flail and wail at Obama’s shining performance abroad
John McCain will turn 72 the day after Sen. Barack Obama accepts his party’s nomination for president at the age of 47.
McCain’s 72 years are clearly on display.
In the last three weeks a seemingly forgetful and confused McCain has “gaffed” numerous times — ironically, on foreign affairs — which he touts as his area of expertise.
Obama has had his share of mis-statements and gaffes, but they have been sparse and much less pronounced when compared to McCain’s “surge” train of gaffe on top of gaffe.
Either McCain is becoming senile or he is a serial-liar and/or his campaign strategists are utterly incompetent.
Or is he just another Bob Dole — about to fall off a stage?
McCain’s Double-Talk Express
Senator John McCain has become a Gaffe Machine since hitting the campaign trail last year. Here is a regularly updated Master List of McCain gaffes.
Also recently the DNC has released its own list for McCain — what it calls McCain’s “Top 10 mis-statements and outright deceptions.”
1. McCain doesn’t even know who is in charge in Iran.
2. Iraq/Iran, Sunni/Shia: McCain doesn’t know the difference.
3. McCain still thinks Czechoslovakia (which split into two countries in 1993) exists.
4. McCain wrongly claimed that Baghdad was mostly normal.
5. McCain called Baghdad market safe.
6. McCain can’t even remember how little he knows about the economy.
7. McCain falsely claimed he never requested pork.
8. McCain falsely claimed that tax cuts increased government revenues.
9. McCain’s claim to be untainted by special interest money is false.
10. McCain wrongly claimed he never supported amnesty.
Let’s be serious — the man is old, and is probably already in the early stages of senility.
So, how bad is this? I like the way Michael Weiss sums it up:
…..depending on your perspective. Either (ha!) he’s a doddering old fool who might be president, or (shit) he’s a doddering old fool who might be president. The availability of his many flubs and missteps on the Internet, a medium with which he doesn’t even pretend to be acquainted, haven’t helped combat McCain’s image as a sufferer from Early Onset Reagan Mind Mush….[MORE >>]
P/S — Ronald Reagan, the Republican hero — a serial liar with a Heart of Darkness was senile in the second half of his presidency, but Republicans will never admit that…LOL!
REFERENCES:
1. Is McCain’s Age Showing? Tongues Wag Over Flubs
2. All Hail ‘McBama’
3. “The guy gets it,” the Jordanian official said after dinner with Obama. “Sharp, aware and a very good listener. He doesn’t seem stuck in preconceived positions. He said he would get straight to the Palestinian issue as soon as he becomes president.” — Read Maureen Dowd’s: Is ‘The One’ Cocky or Commander in Chiefy?
Having long been a member of his party’s more moderate wing on a number of issues, Mr McCain began adopting more right-wing positions during the primary campaign.
Immigration
Last year, Mr McCain was one of the key backers of President Bush’s plan for “comprehensive immigration reform”, which would have created “paths to citizenship” for illegal immigrants, while investing more money in border security.
The plan was very unpopular with the Republican rank-and-file, and Senate Republicans succeeded in blocking the scheme.
During the primaries, Mr McCain announced that his immigration focus would be on securing America’s borders, rather than on giving illegal immigrants the chance to become US citizens.
“I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift,” McCain told reporters in November 2007.
“I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people’s priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders.”
Christian right
Another McCain, quote, shift was in his relationship with the religious right of his party.
During his 2000 bid for the Republican nomination, relations between Mr McCain and Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell were notoriously fractious.
The Arizona senator memorably described Mr Falwell and fellow members of the religious right as “agents of intolerance”.
But in 2006, ahead of his second presidential run, Mr McCain delivered the commencement address at Mr Falwell’s Liberty University, after which he attended a small private party hosted by his former political adversary.
Interrogation rules
More recently, Mr McCain angered his former allies in the political centre by supporting a bill exempting the CIA from following the same rules on interrogation as the US Army.
Guantanamo
Mr McCain was one of the most prominent Republican voices opposed to the Bush administration’s detention policy in Guantanamo Bay.
But when the Supreme Court recently ruled that Guantanamo detainees should have access to US courts, Mr McCain described it as “one of the worst decisions in the history of the country”.
Oil drilling
Since sewing up the Republican nomination in March, Mr McCain - one of only a few prominent Republicans to accept the argument that human activity is causing climate change - has dropped his previous objection to lifting the ban on oil exploration off the coast of the US.
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