McCain's Señor Moment

After all these months on the campaign trail, it is painfully obvious that John McCain is a spin doctor's worst nightmare. His constant confusions, misstatements and gaffes have dogged him all the way, and while the press has largely given him a pass on it, they're piling up to the point where they can no longer be ignored.

But he really outdid himself this week. Interviewed for the Spanish-language radio network Union Radio, McCain was asked whether he would meet with Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero if elected.

"I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion," he said. So far so good.

But then he went off the rails.

"And by the way," he continued, "President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I am glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan. And I intend to move forward with relations and invite as many of them as I can, of those leaders to the White House."

The question was not about Mexico.

Asked again whether he would invite Zapatero, McCain dug himself in deeper. "All I can tell you is I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."

Spain is not in Latin America.

At this point, the candidate was so clearly lost that the interviewer took pity on him and tried explicitly to get him back on track. "Okay, what about Europe?" she said. "I'm talking about the President of Spain."

"What about me what?" McCain replied.

Oh, dear God. The man seems to have no idea where he is or what he's talking about. I can excuse his not knowing the name of the Spanish president, but he really should have boned up on it beforehand - after all, he was going on Spanish-language radio.

But does he really not know where Spain is?

The campaign went into full panic mode, rolling out its talking heads to insist that McCain is not suffering from dementia but he actually intended to call Zapatero a dictator. (For the record, Zapatero was democratically elected and is committed to democratic government in Spain.)

Both explanations are dreadful. If you believe the first one, then the GOP nominee is clearly not playing with a full deck and would be a disaster as president. But if you believe the second one, then McCain is dedicated to continuing the Bush policy of ticking off every ally we have in the world, meaning he'd still be a disaster as president.

There is, of course, a third explanation - that McCain simply misheard the question (although the interviewer repeated it more than once) or got confused because previous questions had concerned Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and other South American leaders who disagree with the United States. But that's not very reassuring either, because one expects the president to know one country's leader from another. Which brings us back to the same question of whether McCain is firing on all cylinders.

In any event, rather than simply admit that McCain got it wrong, his handlers instead created a diplomatic kerfluffle by claiming that he deliberately snubbed the president of Spain. The Spanish embassy released a statement saying, "The only plausible explanation for McCain not wanting to meet with Zapatero, is that, like Bush, he is still angry about Spain pulling its troops out of Iraq in 2004. If McCain carries that much of a grudge then how in the world will he rebuild our relationship with Europe, as he has said he would do."

Great choice, guys.

With six and a half weeks left until the election, only God knows what else he will come up with.

Big Bad Maverick

It appears that the Maverick™ is having a tough time of it lately. Whether it's his claim that only people who make more than $5 million a year can be called "rich" or his insistence that our economic problems are merely "psychological," John McCain seems to be a little, well, out of touch with what's going on in the world.

Over the weekend, the venerable investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed into bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch almost went the same route only to be assimilated by Bank of America. Wall Street responded by sending the Dow down by more than 500 points.

And McCain's reaction to all this was to proclaim that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

One might suspect that he hasn't been taking his Geritol.

Barack Obama immediately pointed out that McCain is clearly and "disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans."

McCain struck back, and he did it mostly by whining.

"This economic crisis is not the fault of the American people," he said. "Our workers are the most innovative, the hardest working, the best skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world. My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals of America are strong. No one can match an American worker. Our workers sell more goods to more markets than any other on earth. Our workers have always been the strength of our economy, and they remain the strength of our economy today."

Translation: that mean Negro is saying bad things about the people who actually do the work.

Where did the straight-talking McCain go? The John McCain who was always eager to stand up for what's right, even if that meant going against his own party, is dead and gone. In his place is someone who refuses to accept criticism and take his lumps when he deserves it. Instead, this new and definitely not improved McCain always hides behind something or someone.

You can't say anything about him because he was a POW. You can't say anything about Sarah Palin because that's sexist. You can't say anything about the Iraq or Afghanistan wars because you're not supporting the troops. And you can't say anything about the economy because you're attacking the working class.

Meanwhile, his lying has gotten so egregious that Karl Rove - Karl Rove! - called him on it.

It appears that the Straight Talk Express has broken down, and it ain't moving again.

Book-Banning Experience

As the GOP faithful rallied round Sarah Palin this week, accusing the media of sexism for daring to question her qualifications and background, yet another in a very long line of disturbing stories emerged from her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

It appears that once she got elected, Palin asked the town librarian if she would purge the library of supposedly inappropriate books. Aghast, Mary Ellen Emmons immediately rejected the demand and Palin responded by firing her. But since Emmons was a popular figure in town, there was a backlash and Palin backed down, reinstating her.

And so the tale of Sarah Palin, caribou hunter and would-be book banner, becomes just a little more sordid. Last month, her church hosted the leader of Jews for Jesus, which would have been blared on Fox News etc. for months on end had it been Barack Obama's church. Add to that the mess over her firing the head of Alaska's state police in retaliation for his refusing to fire her sister's ex-husband, her claim that the Iraq War is a "task that is from God," and more. It just seems to get worse and worse.

(The McCain campaign knows they've got a potential time bomb on their hands in Palin. That's why they have barred the press from asking her any questions in interviews or Q&A sessions. Instead, reporters will be restricted to receiving talking points via the same scripted, choreographed, spoon-fed pabulum that the rest of will receive - i.e., speeches.)

Of course, her nasty and condescending speech Wednesday night only went to show why she was the pick of the Christian Right. Whether it was her sneering references to Barack Obama as a community organizer or her scornful description of the Democratic nominee "turning back the waters and healing the planet," she displayed the mentality that defines the Republican Party. Can't think of a good reason why people should vote for you? No problem! Attack the other guy as an uppity Negro who hates decent white God-fearing Americans.

And considering how the McCain campaign can't seem to get anything right - for example, their confusion of Walter Reed Middle School in California with Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington - it will only get dirtier right up to Election Day.

Better stock up on soap now.

Eagleton Redux?

Back in 1972, George McGovern announced the picking of Thomas Eagleton as his running mate to widespread press coverage. Two weeks later, Eagleton was unceremoniously dumped from the ticket - also to widespread press coverage - once it was revealed that he had undergone electroshock therapy and been hospitalized numerous times for psychiatric problems. McGovern never recovered from the fiasco and went on to get creamed in November.

Are we seeing the same pattern here?

Ever since John McCain announced his VP pick of Sarah Palin on Friday, unpleasant facts have been coming out of the woodwork:

• Palin and her staff pressured public safety commissioner Walt Monegan to fire a state trooper who just happened to be in a bitter divorce and custody fight with Palin's sister. When he refused, Palin fired Monegan and replaced him with a known sexual harasser who lasted only two weeks before being pushed out himself.
  
• Vetting was at best minimal - the McCain campaign knew nothing about the trooper scandal even though it had been big news in Alaska for weeks, and the vetting process seems to have consisted only of a single chat between McCain and Palin.
• She has no foreign-policy experience at all, with Cindy McCain and Fox News being reduced to claiming that she does know about foreign policy because Alaska is right next to Russia.
• As mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she fired the town police chief for supporting her opponent in the 1996 election, then was almost recalled in the ensuing uproar.
  
• She publicly said she has no idea what the vice president's job is.
• She admitted that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant. (Ironically, Palin opposes actual sex education in schools in favor of "abstinence education," which has repeatedly been shown not to work.)
  

And if all that wasn't enough, there are also widespread rumors that Trig, the family's youngest child, is actually Bristol's, but was passed off as Sarah's.

So with signals of a looming train wreck all around us, just why was Palin selected? Putting aside all the beauty-queen and May-December wisecracks, it appears she was picked for two reasons and two only.

1. She is a woman (or, as Samantha Bee nailed it on The Daily Show, a "vagina-American") whom the GOP hopes can win the support of former Hillary Clinton voters despite having positions completely opposite to Clinton's.
   
2. She is a faithful devotee of the Christian Right, falling into line on everything from banning abortion to opposing gay marriage to teaching creationism as science in public schools.
   

Indeed, there are rampant murmurings that McCain actually wanted Joe Lieberman or Mitt Romney as his running mate, but both of those were nixed by the Christian Right, without whose support he cannot win in November. In other words, she was picked to convince the jihadist wing of the GOP that he will do whatever they want as long as they vote for him.

Not only that, the contempt shown for women embodied in the Palin pick is staggering. The Republicans genuinely believe that women are so dumb that they will automatically support anyone with two X chromosomes, regardless of her actual positions on anything. Poll results show that women realize this, and are not pleased.

So yes, McCain got some momentary good press out of the Palin announcement. But this seems to be turning into a nightmare very very quickly.