Foreign policy experience my ass
Interesting. Add “Iraq” to the list of things Sen. McCain is clueless about:
Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.
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.”
The mistake threatened to undermine McCain’s argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists. In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy make him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.
Of course this isn’t just an issue of McCain blowing some trivia answer, it seems to call into question whether he’s really been paying attention to the Iraq issue over the past couple of years. He’s very sure that the surge is working, but doesn’t understand the basic contours of the ongoing conflicts in Iraq? Seems strange.
In a fair and just world this “gaffe” would get as much and more media attention as the comments made my Sen. Obama’s pastor. Rest assured that they won’t though. Also, I love that good ole’ Joe Lieberman was there to help his buddy out. Those two deserve each other.
In some ways this is more newsworthy than anything Wright has said, and in some ways possibly less.
Obviously its more important to focus on the candidate than on who they know. I’d be more concerned about anything Obama/McCain/Clinton said than anything their various friends/family/fundraisers said – excepting where those people are very obviously used as surrogates. So in this way whatever McCain is saying is more important than what Wright has said.
However, this looks like a slip of the tongue rather than McCain not knowing the difference between Al Queda and, say, the Mehdi Army. Pastor Wright’s comments can not be taken as a “did I say ‘god damn’? I’m sorry, I meant ‘god bless’” sort of thing.