McCain: A gaffe machine?
Posted: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 9:19 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Politico writes: “Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said ‘Iraq’ when he apparently meant ‘Afghanistan’ on Monday, adding to a string of mixed-up word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition. Just in the past three weeks, McCain has also mistaken ‘Somalia’ for ‘Sudan,’ and even football’s Green Bay Packers for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ironically, the errors have been concentrated in what should be his area of expertise -- foreign affairs.”
VIDEO: Is John McCain too old to be president? Guest host David Shuster gets the latest reaction from GOP strategist Kevin Madden, Democratic analyst Tonya Acker and MSNBC analyst Carl Crawford.
”McCain will turn 72 the day after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) accepts his party’s nomination for president, calling new attention to the sensitive issue of McCain’s advanced age, three days before the start of his own convention. The McCain campaign says Obama has had plenty of flubs of his own, including a reference to "57 states" and a string of misstated place names during the primaries that Republicans gleefully sent around as YouTubes. But McCain's mistakes raise a serious, if uncomfortable question: Are the gaffes the result of his age? And what could that mean in the Oval Office?”
The New York Times fact-checks latest TV ad, which blames Obama for high gas prices. “[E]ven before the recent spike, oil prices had been rising for a decade, the result of a variety of political and economic factors in places as far afield as China, India, Venezuela and Nigeria. So it is difficult to understand how Mr. Obama, a first-term senator, can be held responsible for that phenomenon. Aside from correctly stating current gasoline prices, [the ad] is misleading on nearly every substantive point. But it is shrewdly conceived and may prove to be effective with undecided voters upset about having to pay as much as $100 to fill their gas tanks, yet uncertain as to the causes of the squeeze on their budgets.”
The Washington Post also runs a fact-check. McCain “may try in this ad to blame rising gas prices on Barack Obama, but after 7 1/2 years of the Bush administration, that's a stretch.” More: “It's a bit audacious for McCain to charge that "some in Washington" still oppose offshore oil drilling, since that was his position, most notably in his 2000 presidential campaign, until he reversed himself last month.”
“The New York Times yesterday defended its decision not to publish an op-ed article as submitted by Republican John McCain about the Iraq war on grounds it customarily reviews such pieces with the author… In an e-mail to the campaign Friday, David Shipley, an op-ed editor at the newspaper, said he could not accept the piece in its current form, but would look at another version… ‘It is standard procedure on our op-ed page, and that of other newspapers, to go back and forth with an author on his or her submission. We look forward to publishing Senator McCain's views in our paper just as we have in the past." McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said the campaign will not submit a revised op-ed.”
The New York Post runs the column.
“Conservative Christian leader James Dobson said in a radio broadcast yesterday that he could reverse his position and endorse John McCain despite serious misgivings. ‘There's nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context,’ Dobson said in a statement. Barack Obama's ‘radical positions on life, marriage, and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain.’
