Thanks to Sam, for another excellent piece of reporting. He's focusing on something very important here about McCain and the choice our country faces with McCain's candidacy.

I'd like to pick up on this observation in particular, and follow it with an, as simple as I can concoct, functional explanation of what is predictably at stake with him and his candidacy, and with many others as well. From the article:

"Either John McCain is purposely playing politics with the facts on the ground or he doesn't understand the threat facing Iraq and our brave troops," said DNC Communications Director Karen Finney. "Either way, after five years of the Bush Administration's incompetence and deception on Iraq, the American people don't want four more years of a president who will cherry-pick the facts."

When I encounter problems involving people, I try to look at their demonstrated level of functioning--what is it that they can do, or seem not to be able to do. I assume, whether we might be talking about John McCain, George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or whomever, that they are each probably trying their best, and are showing us the limits and capabilties of which they can or cannnot do. If I don't see empirical evidence of their ever having done a certain thing, I tend to form a theory that that capability might just not exist in their repertoire. And thus, from what they do now, in a campaign, I "predict" they will do more of in the future, if elected to higher office. A qualitative look at even a single instance or example of something, when viewed from a functional perspective (e.g., level of information processesing) can therefore yield telling predictions of what will be symptomatic or characteristic of that person's functioning if elected to high office. And Sam has focused on a very important "work sample" from the current and past functioning of John McCain that would be, in my opinion, absolutely predictive of what we could expect in the future from a McCain administration. So, please bear with me as I dig in and try to explain where I'm coming from in assessing McCain's level of personal functioning as it would bear on his functioning in a position of high political leadership.

I'll start by saying there is a class of personality that desperately needs public attention but that is very immature in one's personal development. (In fact, it needs attention because of its immaturity, but that's perhaps off the point here. It's most often referred to as a "narcissistic" personality, but that term is typically poorly and inadequately defined and my understanding of it differs significantly from most others, so I will only allude to that term but not rely upon it.) As essential feature of that immaturity is that differences between the self and the external world are unclear and blurred, and differences among others--as in their respective identities--are blurred. The individual has a "confused" perspective, in which "reality" is not seen as clearly distinct and separate from one's own limited perspective on it. Hence, what's important or operative is what one, oneself, thinks and feels, and not "what" the reality is, or "who" the other persons are. What for mature persons are, or should be, clearly distinguished, for such immature persons--I mean here "psychologically immature," McCain is certainly "mature" in other respects--are blurred together, in a way that is confusing to them and confusing to others. McCain, in other words, is a very confused and confusing thinker or, put another way, a very "narcissistic" thinking. By that I mean, much more focused on himself and his own feelings, thoughts, and needs, than he is on the realities outside of himself--as in other people and their respective thoughts, feelings, needs, motives, plans, agendas, etc.

In short, in my view, McCain manifests a class or type of personality, or stage of personality development, that is--not in his case only, but to a large extent in all persons of this type--that is characterized by what one could technically call "a deficit or disturbance in the perception of reality." Please think about that. That's a biggie.

There are other features of a person's performance that follow essentially from that. For example: incompetence in any area of problem-solving (one has to accurately perceive reality to do that); inability to accurately understand others or their intentions or likely behaviors (again, have to perceive reality accurately to do that); lack of wisdom or good judgment (again, have to study reality with depth and perception to have either of these qualities). And finally, one will quite predictably have "disturbances in one's relationships with others" or, put in other terms, one will always be in a state of conflict or "war" with others. McCain's predilection for perpetual war is but a case in point here.

These are serious drawbacks and problems for any personality. They are, of course, even more serious in someone who could potentially become elected to become the leader of the world's currently most powerful country. It would be absolutely foolhardy, absolutely terrible judgment, for any country, or party, to nominate or elect someone like this to high political office, and especially to the office of president.

McCain, however, as should be quickly apparent, is not essentially different in these respects from others we have elected to such high office, or have contemplated electing to such high office. Persons who come to mind here abound: President Bush, VP Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Rudolf Guiliani, Joe Lieberman, and even Hillary Clinton. The only current presidential candidate I see who does not fit this profile is Barack Obama. And neither would I see Bill Richardson fitting this profile. The latter two, I believe, are characterized by a much clearer and more adequate and more balanced perceptions of differences between individuals and groups, and between what are verifiable facts and what are only surmises or assumptions (or presumptions).

The narcissistic person has a great desire to become a great leader of a large and significant group of people, but, at the same time, do not possess (even the ability to attain) an accurate concept of themselves, their qualifications, or of the actual characteristics of the problems to be addressed in such a role, or an actual understanding of how to resolve any of them. The last thing our country needs to do now is elect any such deficient, confusing, misguided, misleading, dysfunctional, and fundamentally incompetent leader to the role of leading our country in this current time of great crisis. It would certainly be "unpatriotic" to do so.

Obviously, I hope, we need to look at our candidates and potential leaders with a more sophisticated and probling lens than we have in the past. We have to, in particular, take a close and hard look at who well, and how accurately, they perceive reality, and other people, and other groups. We have to look not just at their "positions on the issues," but on their having shown some demonstrations of actually having clearly understood and defined the most pressing problems we face, and having in mind some paths toward solutions to those problems that actually hold promise of working.

McCain--case in point, again--promises to continue the agenda Bush embarked upon, that we have tried for five years now, with totally disastrous results, disastrous results that were totally predictable even back in 2002. He certainly has been advertising, for all the world to see, his own lack of vision, lack of understanding, lack of good judgment, lack of ability to learn from experience.

And oh, did I fail to include, one other consequence of the deficient personality development I cited above, is a lack of ability to learn from experience. Again, to learn from experience, one has to be able to adequately and accurately perceive the actual reality involved in that experience. If one does not attend fully to the reality of one's own experience, or of one's country's experience, one does not (and cannot) learn from it.

Sorry this post is so long, but I hope others will have the patience to study this important issue in the greater depth it actually demands. We can do a much better job of saving ourselves, and our planet, by looking closely at the reality of our own experience, especially over the last seven years. Let's learn from our experience. Let's look closely and in detail at the whole of the experience we've, and the world with us, had just had.

The statement "Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated" is poorly worded, but not clearly wrong. If you interpret the prepositional phrase to refer to the second part of the subject (Shia extremists) and not the first part (Al Qaeda) it's accurate.

However, it would be helpful to see McCain quizzed on the finer points of Iraqi politics. Does he know the three main ethnic groups? Does he know which group Saddam Hussein was from? Does he know how and when the modern state of Iraq was created? Does McCain know what "al Tikriti" means and why Saddam banned the use of "al Tikriti" in personal names? Does he know who the province where Tikrit is located is named for, and the ethnicity of that person? I don't expect a president to know this level of detail about every country in the world, but he should be well versed in the history of the country where we're fighting a war.

It wouldn't surprise me if some elements within the Iraqi army are so corrupt they are buying weapons from Iran on a black market, and then selling them to Al Qaeda in Iraq. Hence the misconception, voiced by John McCain and others, that Al Qaeda and Iran are in cahoots. But the apparent eagerness to believe in collusion between Iran and Al Qaeda betrays a lack of understanding of the complexities of sectarian and ideological strife in the Middle East. This is not just a failure to dot i's and cross t's --- the Bush administration's ignorance of the real situation in Iraq, and the mistakes that it made as a result, have cost the U.S. hundreds more lives and hundreds of billions more dollars.

Dumb and Dummer.....Two F---ing Morons....

Be sure to check him out! Is he being spoon fed yet? Does he drool when you say bomb or lobbyist? Does his vocabulary exceed that of Bush or Lieberman or both?

John's catastrophic misunderstandings indicate that he is hard of hearing. I have the same problem stemming from ears battered from too many rounds popping over a full year usually in front of an infantry company in the I-corp of Vietnam. My hearing was so bad that I thought al queda was an afternoon talk show host!

Although the televised clip was a frightening revelation that he could make a mistake about (or be ignorant of) such a basic fact, this written statement may not even be incorrect. There's no grammatical reason to assume the clause set off by the em dashes refers to both antecedents. (I never checked up on the radio interview comment.) Regardless, it's troubling enough, just as those revelations from the 9/11 commission interviews that very high-up counter-terrorist units of our intelligence services failed to appreciate the Sunni-Shi'ia distinction. It's really hard to believe.

this website should be forced to post the national intelligence estimate that proves iran is infact selling arms to al qeada in iraq. and then each one of the leftist who have attacked the war hero john mccain must issue written apologies and acknowledge that like obama, they have no clue about foreign policy.

Watching the clip, everyone notices and mentions that Lieberman prompts him (Frank Lutz criticizes Obama for reading his speech, and he says "badly"---apparently teleprompters are bad but stage prompters are OK). did you all notice the look on Graham's face just before McCain spoke? Like he was thinking, "OH OH the old fart is going to say it again."

I thing there needs to be a boycott of the news stations and just get news from online or other sources.
Cause McCain was endorsed by some idiot with a loud mouth but that didn't hurt him. We are voting for change and dont we all forget. its change America is looking for. not clinton or mcCain but change. but if hillary should win then we have to vote for hiliary

McCain didn't make a mistake. The radical right wants Americans to hate Iran so they can bring another country into the war. Remember the military industrial complex.

Going to make some wonderful ADS in the general...

As recent as this morning, Joe Scarborough of "Morning Joe" REPORTED (with such satisfaction and relief) ----- "McCain is doing SO WELL in the latest polls with Independents".

When Scarborough USES his show to promote McCain and degrade other candidates, THAT TENDS TO HAPPEN. Amazing Sarborough would NOT REPORT that whlie he is degrading other candidates, McCain is CONSISTANTLY making enemies abroad with gaffes and ignoring countries ----- creating problems for America.

Does he realize that this is STILL the primaries?

However, WE know he will continue to promote a Hillary vs McCain match up. That's the ONLY way the Republicans WILL WIN.

Now, even though Tucker was booted ---- Scarborough invites Tucker to help with the PROMOTION of THEIR candidate---John McCain.

Are we sure this is a gaffe and not foreboding?

It's NOT a Gaffe, It's a LIE a.k.a. RePug Talking Point.

Wow! McCain would be like a third Bush term and a third Reagan term all rolled into one.

FeedingTube vs YouTube............................anybody seen Nurse Vicky lately

It's the perennial Bush question: is he lying or just dumb? Of course, it's a combination, but in today's America, you can re-condition the public by repeating any statement. Maybe there are secret messages in old Beach Boy songs. Maybe it's time to punish Iran for its despicable harboring of Al-Qaeda

Senator McCain should simply fire his staff advisors, I mean, several hundred comments have already been posted with the attempts at humour from the juvenille to the inane so I will not revisit that arena, I think that the thousands of dead and injured service personell and civillians in Iraq should be afforded more respect than ever being made part of any joke. But, returning to the issue at hand, the reality is that the vast majority of Americans could not tell the difference between a person of the Sikh faith and a Muslim, their only frame of reference is head dress. So the outrage and intellectual shock expressed in regards to Senator McCain's misstep is quite disingenous on the part of those posting to this article. The state of the American educational system is in such decline that we are graduating more illiterates than we have at any other time in our nations history. Most Americans would be lucky to name all of the states, let alone the provinces and territories of Canada, and the countries in South America - and forget about the rest of the world, religions, or languages. Senator McCain simply needs to hire better more alert educated intelligent political operatives. Yes, this is embarrasing, but it is not fatal politically. Everyone makes mistakes, these candidates have been campaigning non-stop with very little sleep.

God Bless.

.01

Time to increase the dosage on the Mellaril.

The body develops a bit of tolerance after long term use.

He's dropping b.s. in order to confuse and soften up the sound of "Iran/Al Qaeda". He's a son of a bitch of the highest order. There will be some people somewhere who don't realize he was corrected and just accept Iran/Al Qaeda.

We'd better get some serious legislation going to hold these bottomfeeders accountable for every one of their "mis-speaks". It is their duty and obligation to tell the truth - the actual truth and not try to bullshit their way out of it with "the truth as I knew it then". They know. It's deliberate.

What's he doing travelling around the globe at our expense anyway???? That alone is an indication of the "straight talk express". Give me a break.

McCain is suffering with a life long struggle to "win a war" since he was shot down in Vietnam and held as a POW. He was on the losing side and needs to prove to himself he is a winner. Psychological issues. No different than Bush Jr. who had to prove that Bush Sr. had b*lls like a real man-- .

All personal psychological issues needing a couch to resolve- not a battlefield.

Go Obama.

"Hello, my name is John McCain.

I'm not wearing any pants and I have no idea where I am.

Please vote for me for President."

He is just setting up his plausible deniability early. He brings a tear to my eye, he reminds me of the great Ronald Reagan. You know, the last 2 years of his Presidecy. I lovingly refer to them as the, " I can't recall", years.

This geriatric old fart is exibiting serious signs of "senility" and to top it off , is using Lieberman (of all people) as a crutch to cue him , the same way Nancy (& her astrologer) used to do for Reagan.

I hope the consistantly disappointing collective intelligence of the American voting public can for once , face reality and "pass" on McCain ----- but I wouldn't count on it (Nixon 2X / Reagan 2X / Bush 2X) ----- pitiful.

.