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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

There's not a good explanation for this

Considering he's supposed to be the "national security expert..."
He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "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." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."


That's just not a slip an informed person makes "several times" under repeated questions.

So, do we assume he's just dangerously muddled in his understanding or too old to keep it all straight?

Later: He made the same misstatement yesterday!

posted by mikevotes at 1:41 PM

9 Comments:

  • The press will give him a pass; politely averting they hears out of respect for a "great American hero."

    Now if Obama had been as clueless....

    By Blogger -epm, at 1:54 PM  

  • Yeah, can you imagine.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 2:14 PM  

  • Keith Olberman's going to give him a pass? Paul Krugman's going to give him a pass? Maureen Dowd is going to give him a pass? Arianna Huffington is going to give him a pass?

    I don't think so.

    You can't really say "the press" anymore like it's one monolithic
    right-wing structure.

    But the sad part is... there probably are not a whole lot of Americans who will understand what a whopper of a mistake McCain made. And most of them are already voting Democratic.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2:55 PM  

  • Fair point, but Olberman and Huffington don't really reach outside their group.

    Dowd and Krugman do get a broader audience (even if it is disdainful.)

    I'm not hopeful this will get the coverage it deserves amidst all the other stuff today.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 3:01 PM  

  • Also, Olberman, Krugman, Dowd, Huffington, etc, etc, are not "the press." They are opinion makers who preach to their own converted. I don't know if you'll see a news piece that calls into question McCain's apparent disaffection with reality. I mean this is huge.

    It's like if Bush didn't know the difference between Shia and Sunnis, or thought Saddam was assisting Bin Ladin... The media would have been all over that!! Oh, never mind.

    By Blogger -epm, at 3:35 PM  

  • Whether it's huge depends on interpretation. Was he tired, was it mistatement?

    I don't think so, but those factor into the decision on how to write these things.

    (Plus, the way these stories generate now is uncredited media, blogs, talkshows, etc, to columnists pundits, then to AP covering the "controversy."

    This is where the left really suffers not having talk radio or FoxNews. It really has to come from the blogs and up.)

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:34 PM  

  • This is the very common "they are all just terrorists" mistake. al Qaeda is the main problem, Iran is supporting terrorism: there must be a connection right?

    I know that the house intelligence committee chair (from Texas, help me out with this) made the same type of mistake. He said al Qaeda were probably shi'ite (he wasn't sure).

    If I'm not mistaken, Hilary Clinton said roughly what McCain just said a few months ago.

    By Blogger Praguetwin, at 4:36 PM  

  • I think Olberman et al. would define themselves as part of "the press." If you mean just the supposed "hard news" reporters, well, we'll see. If nothing else, Obama will certainly pounce on the mistake, and that will get attention.

    And I would say that Bush's mental deficiencies have been pretty widely reported.

    Now that the post-911 spasm of unreality has passed, I think there's just about as much justification to left-wing claims of media bias as there is to right-wing claims. Some, but not a whole lot. What you get really depends on what media outlet you look at.

    In particular, I strongly disagree that Obama is treated unfairly by the press as a whole.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:37 PM  

  • Praguetwin, it was the premise for the entire Giuliani campaign.

    Silvestre, and that's a little different because that mistake, although deeply ignorant, didn't tie Al Qaeda to a nation that McCain has already said he wants to bomb.

    ....

    TG, That's the distinction.

    Personally, I think Olberman has morphed into a Bill O'Reilly style opinionist rather than a newsguy.

    And, I think the only "unfair to Obama" is running the Wright comments on a loop. Other than that, no. They've been fair to friendly to Obama.

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 5:31 PM  

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