McCain’s Still Fighting the Mexican Revolution
You’ve all heard, by now, that McCain got really confused when asked a question about Spain’s President, Jose Luis Zapatero, in an interview yesterday.
INTERVIEWER: Senator finally, let’s talk about Spain. If elected president would you be willing to invite President Jose Rodriguez Louis Zapatero to the White House, to meet with you?
McCAIN: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion.
And by the way President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we are now working 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.
INTERVIEWER: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government? To the president himself?
McCAIN: Uh, I don’t, I, ya know, I, honestly, I have to look at the situations and the relations and the priorities. But I can assure you, I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America.
INTERVIEWER: So you have to wait and see. If he’s willing to meet with you, would you be able to do it? In the White House?
McCAIN: Well, again, I don’t — 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.
There’s been some debate over whether McCain simply thinks Zapatero, a NATO ally, isn’t supporting American policies, or whether he simply had a senior moment … a really bad one.
Me, I think John McCain is still fighting the Mexican Revolution. Seriously.
From the transcript, it’s obvious that McCain thought the interviewer–who had asked about Venezuela and then Cuba–was asking another question about a third Latin American country, Mexico. His immediate response, after all, was to emphasize his support for Calderon, the conservative President of Mexico. McCain’s answers might have been appropriate had the interviewer asked about Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Calderon’s opponent in 2006 and another populist McCain’s crowd viewed with the same loathing as they view Chavez and both Castros.
But how did he get from a question about Spain’s President, presumably through Mexico’s former opposition leader to Mexico’s President?
I think we can blame it on Mexican Revolutionary war hero, Emiliano Zapata (also a populist of the type that would scare McCain).
I’m guessing that McCain was concentrating as hard as he could on Latin America–he has already made it clear he intends to claim Obama has no expertise in Latin America. And so when he was presented with a name that didn’t have anything to do with Latin America, his brain compensated and presented a vague amalgam of terms: I can imagine McCain struggling to establish a pattern: Latin American populist, Latin American populist, Latin American populist, and somewhere out of the depths of Mexican history he has gained from living in Arizona for a quarter century, out came Zapata, and from there Mexico. Zapatero, Zapata–to a wrinkly white dude like McCain, I imagine progressives with Spanish names all seem the same.
It’s funny though. McCain’s old. But he’s not actually as old as Emiliano Zapata.
I think it was the Zapatistas he might have been thinking of, themselves namesd after Zapata.
You may be right. In any case, I think he made a Zapata-Zapatero slip because both Zapata and the Zapatistas are Mexican (and populist).
If McCain pulls this BS at the debates, they could sink him. It wasn’t even a trick question. I don’t see much in the way of coverage in the TradMed though.
He should have checked with danny boy
“I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.” — J. Danforth Quayle
McCain sounds groggy and tired during the interview. I don’t know what time of day it was taped. It sounded to me like he couldn’t place the name when the interviewer added it: he gave a brush-off answer, and then a longer, more annoyed, more obviously mistaken answer when she followed up on his vague first answer.
At the saddleback forum, and at the GOP convention, McCain seemed sharp and focused – but those were both situations where he had the cue cards in advance. Meanwhile, Cheney-Rove protege Smith has curtailed virtually all unscripted access to McCain.
What’s going on?
I can’t remember where I read this. The woman who interviewed him said she got the impression he knew exactly what/who she was asking about. She felt he was ducking the question. I don’t know which is scarier: That he didn’t know what she was talking about, or that he feels that Spain is hostile to the US.
hey marcy, great post, mccain should lose every single latino vote if we can get this message publisized
off topic but something to consider on a future post, over at glen’s place we are talking about the palin yahoo account being broken into
I made the point,we don’t even know if the nsa were those that did the hacking, they could do it if they wanted and it would be perfectly legal since they no longer need a warrant, they can justify any breakin they want of this account
so the question that would send a chill even through the republican’s spine would be;
“how do we know it was not the nsa that hacked into palin’s account and then leaked the information?…they don’t need a warrant and they wouldn’t acknowledge if they did do it, they would even deny it and we would have no idea at all if this was done legally through that agency”
man, they would go nutz
Or how do we know that they didn’t do it, and then only post the fairly innocuous emails on the internet, thus giving her cover for deleting them all?
uhyup
ding ding ding ding
we have a wiiiinnnnnaaah
bmaz will tell you what you won …
next
Now McCain wants to fire the SEC chairman Cox, scapegoat ala Brownie?
McCain is deranged and the Dems should hit this somehow?
He is really acting strangely, but what’s he got to lose…
O/T
The Barton Gellman book is revealing.
Thinkprogress is reporting that “for years” Dick Cheney engaged a man named Eric Steen as his personal archivist. Steen currently appears as a staffer in Cheney’s Congressional Office according to Legistorm.
FEC records show Steen also worked for OH Rep Paul Gillmoor and may have held a position at DOD in the early 90’s.
Steen might be the “records manager” that bmaz, earlofhuntington and others have been searching for. Steen might be the guy that oversees that Fourth Branch’s “Vice Presidential Records non-act.”
What does McCain have to do, drool on himself, before people realize that he has lost his mind? We are witnessing serious cognitive impairment. The guy is incoherent.
Doesn’t this assume he had a mind to lose?
I’m hestitant to cite pornographers, but …Woodward’s latest book on the Bush presidency describes several incidents depicting the Bush White House acting extremely deferentially towards Senator McCain. The general thrust is that some in the White House saw [see] him as having more credibility in military matters, and in foreign policy issues heavy with military concerns [assuming there’s a difference in the Bush White House] than the Bush White House had [has]. Despite all that, and bearing in mind that some of the relevant passages are in Woodward’s typical style of word [or very close to it] for word [or very close to it], I didn’t read anything that demonstrated any clarity of conception, or any depth of analysis, or any insight into the issue at hand. Instead, one gets the picture of everyone walking on egg shells while this loose cannon rolls around the House.
Can anyone- anywhere- any time- produce even a single clearly articulated, non-ambivalent sustained passage, other than from when he’s squinting at a teleprompter, where Senator McCain has EVER demonstrated a level of intelligence beyond that of a journeyman professional boxer?
No; and I have been watching the old goat for a lot longer than most. He has always been this way; but he is getting worse.
you do know that woodward works for naval intelligence, right ???
fucker is a spook
and the term “naval intelligence always makes me wonder, which is smarter, an innies or outies ???
he’s coherent
listen to him
every time he says “Barack Obama” or”My Opponent”, he’s really TALKIN ABOUT HIMSELF
it’s easy for mcsame to describe Obama as a cowardly sleezy lyin snake
mcsame turned into a cowardly sleezy lyin snake
so mcsame figures that Obama must have sold his soul too
it’s called “Projection” by psychiatrists
(fuck me, I spelled psychiatrists right the first time ???)
(now I gotta check my tinfoil)
McCain is too old for the job as the interview clearly shows. Congress can give up sending subpoena’s to Loyal Bushies ’cause I think they just cranked up the round the clock shred-o-matic and won’t have time for Capitol Hill. BTW, the tragedy of Ike in Houston and Galveston is vying for most under reported story, Katrina revisited.
McCain’s foreign policy adviser Randy Sheunemann digs the whole deeper:
“Sheunemann’s answer is likely to be cause deep ripples within the diplomatic community, as it represents a more aggressive and antagonistic approach than that deployed by the Bush administration. It also promises to be hotly contested, as a review of the McCain interview suggests that the Senator was confused as to who Zapatero actually was.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..27449.html
I’m no political consultant, but I though the first rule of “Campaign Fight Club” was to bury these types opf stories-fast. Not breathe new life into them.
Oh, dear. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging?
After agreeing to be interviewed by a reporter from the Spanish press, I’m sure he got thoroughly briefed, but he didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.
“Noooooobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our two main weapons ah feah and sopwize!”
“And a fanatical devotion to the Pope!”
“Thwee main weapons…..”
McCain wouldn’t know Viva Zapata from Viva Max.
My two pesos: from what I glean 1) McCain was having problem hearing and 2) Zapatero didn’t ring a bell.
Scheunemann’s explanation is worse than the original “gaffe” which might have been explained away — rather, I should say, it wouldn’t have percolated to the MSM as the McCain campaign could have bullied the press into not reporting something so sketch. The explanation, on the other hand, can’t be explained away.
Don’t forget that the Zapatistas were led by a guy – Subcommandante Marcos a/k/a Delegate Zero – who wore a mask (shades of Zorro!) and whose name was pretty close to both Ferdinand Marcos (likely an old-time McCain friend, from dad’s day and his liberty calls in Subic, back in the day), and Commandante Zero, a figure in the El Salvador wars of the 80s.
That, and the mask and terrism kinda go together in the wingnut headspace.
Toss in that whole, they all sound the same so they are the same, bit.
So, I’m betting all that swirled around in the toxic soup that is his cerebrospinal fluid and, a sparking short or two later, out came a canned answer about supporting our dictators, um, friends in Central America. Notwithstanding the blatant preface about “let’s talk about Spain.”
That, or he’s still remembering the days when Spain was the power to be consulted when talking about South America. Colonies and all that….
Well, it could be a senior moment compounded by hearing loss.
How many of us have seen that combination before?
A mistake is one thing. We all make mistakes, and it’s surprising how nice people will be if you just ‘fess up.
But as brendanx says, the explanation is worse than the original gaffe, and the explanation probably can’t be explained. Plus it will catch international attention: candidate for U.S. presidency considers Spain a dodgy non-ally? Really bad optics.
Bonus: coverage of the story will also necessarily consider the more obvious explanation — that he’s hard of hearing, old and addled.
We age so differently, y’know? Biden is such a young 65, such a romping witty kid. McCain is such an old 72, such a sad grump. I know 80-yr-olds who still have Biden’s zest, and it would be nice if we could all do that, but mainly we can’t — I sure can’t — and McCain is just plain too old now.
And if that’s the case, a senior moment and some hearing loss, let’s think about the downside of that.
Like mistaking what a furrin’ leader says or, worse, what your own advisors say and then launching a war – conventional or nuclear?
And being too proud and stubborn to admit making a mistake and back down from a decision made, but not yet executed?
WaPo, thru HuffPo: “Scheunemann is now insisting that the Senator meant what he said.”
Angry, bellicose and too proud and stubborn to admit making a mistake and back down from a decision made.
Only makes matters worse.
man, we sure want that guy with his finger on the trigger, don’t we
I don’t get worked up about individual “gotcha” incidents.
Stringing a big group of them into early stage Alzheimer’s, I’m OK with……
The other thing to note is that the interviewer, unlike most American journalists most of the time, was willing to keep asking the question until McCain gave her an answer. The journalists he’s used to are almost always satisfied with the first formulaic nonsense a politician spouts and then they move on to something else. This incident probably would be repeated many times if we had real journalists as they do in Europe. In fact, we would have better politicians if ours were subject to genuine interviews more of the time.
OT – Don Siegelman Liveblogging over at the Big O.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..722/602353
Siegelman is liveblogging a post on Southwest immigration??? Maybe a bad link? Who made this link, Norv Turner??
Last I night I saw a bit of 60 Minutes’ piece on Royalty, part of which was a touring interview with Dubya wandering around the White House. (The show was about British royalty, not the Bushes.)
Anyway, here’s the on-topic part: Dub’s voice was a bit garbled, he seemed confused and not there, but OK he was in his own home. I couldn’t help but compare to McSame. As if these puppets are drugged to keep them compliant. Not that I really believe that…still, somewhat like a character in a zombie film.
Doh!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/…..255/602844
hey man, lay off Norv Turner. Ted Cottrell’s defense, maybe!
You know, they ginned up a shooting war with Russia — surely they can manufacture some contretempts around which they can retroactively justify Scheunemann’s explanation that Spain is our adversary, maybe something Zapatero has said on a bugged telephone or something.
“contretemps”
Remember the Maine.
I still have a personal score to settle with Franco.
Maybe soon we’ll be throwing our weight behind Gibraltar?
Citizen92,
Before or after we bail out Prudential?
[Just kidding about Prudential; as far as I know, they’re fine…]
As far as the aging thing, my twins (9 year old boys) had an interesting comment. They were watching McCain last night (on Olbermann and Maddow) and talking about how ancient he seemed. I pointed out that he was the same age as their grandpa (my dad) and they were shocked. ‘Grandpa’s not old like that!”, they said in unison. Of course, Grandpa knows how to use computers and doesn’t get nearly as grumpy as McCain always seems.
Glad to hear that you’ve got your TV back, WO.
But hey! Prudential — Gibraltar — that’s Walter Cronkite! (”You Are There,” if you’re old enough.)
What could be more solid?
@WilliamOckham
I meant Gibraltar as in The Rock a la Barbary Apes, but you’ve got a point there.
And I do remember that Prudential had an advert campaign calling itself The Rock.
So I guess it’s all interrelated.
Viva Zapata!
NO – his dopey grins give it away every time.
I figured it out
It’s a MASSIVE conspiricy
first we expand NATO
then we denounce and ATTACK NATO
why not ???
Without America, the rest of those guys are gonna get their asses kicked, you just know it
so we get all of our tanks parked along the Russian border, cut a deal with the ruskies, and turn our tanks around and drive right over those cheese eating surrender monkies
it’s quick, it’s evil, and it’s underhanded
I like it
I’m not sure if this is a moment of clarity, or pinholes in the tinfoil, but sign me up
and on an off-topic subject, can’t you people understand that sarah palin is the world’s leading expert on energy because she can see oil wells from her porch ???
us liberals need to get a clue (wink)
I’d give him the benefit of half the doubt here. Basically, it seems that he couldn’t precisely remember who Zapatero was and which country he was President of. He began playing for time to see if he could get some context…so he started talking about Mexico…but the interviewer didn’t help him out so he just kept answering as best he could. It’s an old tactical trick in rhetoric. Frankly, sadly, the current President is just as ignorant…he just has better handlers (now) than McCain has at the moment. But, once McCain gets elected, I’m sure he’ll be wandering around Rio surprised at all the “blacks” they have there…just like good ol’ GWB. It is to dream.