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.
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