McCain Blooper Reel: A Matter of History

It should go without saying that John McCain is leaning very, very heavily on Iraq, and particularly the effectiveness of the surge, in order to make his case that he would be a superior Commander-in-Chief to Barack Obama. In case you haven't been following the most recent round of sniping between Obama and McCain, it goes roughly like this:

McCAIN. First there was the surge, then there was stability. Surge good!
OBAMA. Right, but the stated purpose of the surge was to make space for a political reconciliation, which didn't happen. Surge bad!
McCAIN. But other awesome stuff happened after the surge too, like the Anbar Awakening. Surge good!

(See, I told you it would be rough.)

Then, unfortunately, the facts got in the way. It seems that the Anbar Awakening (or Sunni Awakening, or Iraqi Awakening; whichever term you prefer, it refers to the establishment of a number of councils of Sunnis who cooperated with the American military against Sunni insurgents) actually happened before the surge. TPM strings it all together:

As McCain might say: "I mean, that's just a matter of history."

McCain Blooper Reel: Now Who's a Flip-Flopper?

John McCain, May 28, 2008, Reno, Nevada:

Senator Obama has been to Iraq once. A little over two years ago, he went, and he has never seized the opportunity, except in a hearing, to meet with General Petraeus.... Now, I asked Senator Obama to go to Iraq. I asked him to go back... and I said I would go with him, if necessary. I would be glad to go with him.

Last month, Obama announced plans to visit Iraq sometime before the election.

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for McCain's campaign, this morning:

Let's drop the pretense that this is a fact-finding trip and call it what it is: the first of its kind campaign rally overseas.

Plus, some whining:

It is unproductive to spend it worrying about the way Obama is covered. That being said, it certainly hasn't escaped us that the three network newscasts will originate from stops on Obama's trip next week.

John McCain, a little bit later, sort of repudiating Hazelbaker's comments:

The fact is that I’m glad he is going to Iraq. I am glad he is going to Afghanistan. It’s long, long overdue if you want to lead this nation.

John McCain, another little bit later, according to the Times:

Later in the day, in Grand Haven, Mich., Mr. McCain elaborated on his and Ms. Hazelbaker’s original remarks. He differentiated the Iraq and Afghanistan parts of the trip from its other legs, saying that Mr. Obama’s activities in those other countries could have “a political flavor, to say the least.”

I'm really lost at this point as to what part of the trip is pandering and what part of the trip is legitimate fact-finding. The logic seems to work like this: If John McCain tells you to go to a country, that makes you slightly better qualified to be commander in chief, except that you should have done it before John McCain told you to go, and at any rate you're not as qualified as John McCain. But if John McCain didn't recommend a trip, it's just a big overseas rally. Ooh, that makes my head hurt.

McCain Blooper Reel: Inaugural Edition

For a while I've been toying with the idea of establishing a recurring feature, à la "Sunday Nights on the Lam," chronicling John McCain's sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening missteps on tape and on the record. I've been held back mostly by my superhuman (if I do say so myself) capability to not follow through with stuff I start. However, two factors reassure me. The first is that my usual tardiness shouldn't be an issue, because the official timing of this series is Whenever I Feel Like It. The second is that the last week or so has provided all kinds of awkward McCain moments, leaving me confident that I will not be bereft of material. So, without further ado, I present to you the inaugural edition of the John McCain Blooper Reel.

Probably my favorite incident this week is McCain's utter failure to muster a response to a reporter's question about why he voted against requiring that Medicare cover birth control. Watch it:

The gist of it is that Carly Fiorina, a McCain surrogate, made the news recently for complaining that many insurance plans cover Viagra but not birth control. Some witty person quickly pointed out that she ought to be complaining to her chosen candidate, because McCain twice voted against a bill that would require insurers to cover birth control. Oops. Later, maybe or maybe not aboard the Straight Talk Express, a reporter asked McCain about his position on that issue. First, as soon as the Viagra bit came up, McCain stammers, "I certainly do not want to discuss that issue." Then he hedges and hedges and hedges, and pauses for a full eight seconds before he says that he has no idea what his position is, and he'll have someone get back to her. CNN later received a boilerplate response from the campaign saying that McCain supports choice in health insurance. I'm not altogether sure what that means, although I'm pretty convinced that his pro-choice sentiments don't extend to abortion - which is really too bad, because abortions would probably be less frequent if women had better access to birth control.

But what really gets me is the digging in his long, long memory for a voting record, as if he couldn't formulate an opinion when he was point-blank asked for one. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. I am not a heterosexual, and I nonetheless have an opinion about birth control. I understand that condoms will probably not be the subject of an international crisis anytime soon (although they sure are international these days), but shouldn't McCain, whose campaign is premised on the argument that he is qualified to be the commander in chief, at least be able to make a snap judgment about something so banal as condoms? Or maybe it's just the mention of Viagra that got him. After all, we all know how that worked out for Bob Dole.

You probably saw this coming, but Viagragate is not McCain's only misstep regarding women's issues. Here's a clip from last Friday, in Wisconsin of all places, where McCain hearts equal pay for his mostly-female audience:

But here he is in Michigan two months earlier, getting called out by a fourteen-year-old:

Oops! Maybe McCain doesn't heart equal pay. He comes up with an awfully weak justification for skipping the vote on (and stating his opposition to) the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act on the grounds that extending the statute of limitations with respect to pay discrimination claims is "um, um, bad for people, and, um, trial lawyers suck." (That's a paraphrase - sorry, but I just can't listen to that clip again - it's that incoherent.) If you haven't followed, the Fair Pay Act was drafted in response to Ledbetter v. Goodyear, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiff's pay discrimination suit against Goodyear Rubber was invalid because she filed suit more than 180 days after the decision was made to pay her less than men doing the same job. The Fair Pay Act would remedy that situation by making it clear that pay discrimination occurs every time a woman is issued a check that gives her less pay for doing the same work as a man, so that the clock on the statute of limitations starts ticking much later in a worker's career. The act does not, as McCain claims, abolish the statute of limitations, or even extend it; it recognizes that pay discrimination, like so many other forms of bias, can't be isolated to a single incident, and that its harms occur every time a woman gets a paycheck for less money than she deserves - a change that is essential to ensuring equal pay for equal work. So much for McCain's attempt at feminism.

(Oh, and if that doesn't get you pissed, consider this: What kind of campaign would pass over the microphone to a girl wearing a T-shirt reading "John McCain doesn't care about your future"?)

Finally, Markus beat me to it, but I highly recommend this clip of Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina and until yesterday considered a VP candidate, screwing up on the important question: "Are there any significant economic differences between what the Bush administration has put forward over these many years, as opposed to, now, what John McCain supports?"

Here are the topical words: "NAFTA," then "earmarks." First, as Blitzer points out, McCain loves NAFTA, but at least he's loved it consistently, which doesn't differentiate him from El Presidente at all. Plus, if we're all about consistency, maybe we should keep that in mind when it comes to McCain's newfound love for the Bush tax cuts, which he voted against way back when. Then, I don't think they get to this, but earmarks are - forgive me for this nerdiness - fiscal policy, and not economic policy in the sense that most folks think of it (think gas prices, jobs, and other mental issues). I'm not sure that John McCain has ever argued that reducing earmarks will create jobs. In fact, he hasn't even claimed that vetoing earmark-laden beers bills will help balance the budget (thus freeing up funds for his other genius economic schemes), reserving that task for "victory savings" from Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, there's some fuzzy math.

That's all for this blooper reel, but one last note: any other DemApples blogger is more than welcome to join in on the fun. Just be sure to tag your posts "McCain Blooper Reel," for the sake of my easy access to the series on a bad day.