Media Starting to Notice McGaffe

(I saw the name "McGaffe" somewhere at Daily Kos.) The man is a walking mistake.

It appears that the big sleeping media might be looking up from their script to see the facts on the ground. Which include John McCain being a confused, gaffe-prone candidate. Of course at nearly 72 years of age -- the average lifespan for men a few years ago -- he's bound to make mistakes, be confused, and stumble.

What was it this time? He thought the North and South Poles shared a border? Something like that. Maybe it was Iraq and England. Afghanistan and Las Vegas? No, I think it was Turkey and Tahiti. Have I mentioned he's a foreign policy expert?

He also seems to have his facts concerning the timeline of the Iraq war wrong. I know the Republicans insist they don't want timetables, but that doesn't mean history itself has to be a hash, does it? What did he say came first? We took out Saddam Hussein, then we had Pearl Harbor? Or Pearl Harbor happened, followed quickly by the Iraq war, then 9/11? He had something wrong. We might be gracious to the man -- living in a haze as he obviously does -- and say, at some point in the distant future, the details of the Iraq war will telescope into one neat little package. We stupidly went there, we stumbled around under poor leadership, and finally we stumbled out, declaring it a victory. So John McCain is simply ahead of his time! But now, since we're so close to the war -- as it's still going on -- little things like "facts" matter, I guess.

McCain is also showing more and more bad temper. He called Barack Obama a traitor, and insisted that Obama would sell out his country in order to lead it. Something like that. No one believes it, of course, although McCain got a smattering of polite applause. And no doubt a lot of sympathetic people glancing at each other, meaning to compassionately avert their eyes when the nice men in the white jackets showed up to take him away. His temper is famous, but, hey, it's only July! If he's this nasty now, it'd be good to make sure you have your rabies shots if you'll be anywhere near him in October.

Some of the media shots are adding up, resulting in a bedraggled, pathetic candidate and campaign. It was sorrowful to see him give the OK sign to the one (or two) reporters who greeted him the other night. As I understand it, they were left there by other reporters, pranksters, who told them they were hunting for snipe, and were disappointed when it was just John McCain who showed up.

The campaign is trying to appear that they're taking it all in stride. But right now they're running on Geritol fumes -- and it's tough. They're using every trick in the book to respond, which mostly comes down to complaining, griping, and whining. If you don't have the opportunity to travel with McCain's campaign, just visit any nursing home at mealtime and you'll experience exactly what it's like.