Yesterday, while enjoying a meal at a Pittsburgh sandwich shop, John McCain made a joke about how maybe he could kill Iranians with cigarettes, because that's how people with tremendous plane-crashing leadership roll. But rather than capture what happened with a headline that explained how a grown man running for President thinks the indiscriminate killing of a nation of people whose "affection for the United States" is described as "thriving these days" is funny, the Associated Press instead chose to use this headline:
That's right! The AP, in their infinite wisdom, wants your attention drawn to Cindy McCain "jabbing" McCain in the back. And it wasn't even a terrorist fist jab!
Cindy McCain's jab to her husband's back came a second too late Tuesday to keep him from making a wisecrack about the health impact of Iran's main import from the United States: cigarettes.
That's the lede, and even it is stupendously out of whack with what actually happened. McCain did not "make a wisecrack about the health impact" of cigarettes. He suggested that cigarettes might be used to murder Iranians, because that is hilarious.
Don't forget to LOL when cigarettes become a major component of John McCain's plan to overhaul Social Security.
UPDATE: Via ThinkProgress, How are reporters are treating McCain's remarks? Idiotically, if you must know!
NBC's Chuck Todd: That's what makes him real and that's what makes people who disagree with him say "ah, you know what? The guy seems like any guy you'd want to have around the dinner table or the bar stool."
CNN's Jessica Yellin: "People who love him think his a maverick and think he's a real guy who makes a joke off the cuff just like real people do [but] we're all waiting to see if something explodes, this kind of comment doesn't."
Now, I'm a Chuck Todd fan, but you really have to question his judgement. Jokes about genocide are not the sort of things I want around my dinner table or barstool, and I think it's safe to say that it's "jokes" like those that make people who disagree with McCain realize that their disagreements are well founded.
As for Jessica Yellin's comment, I think it's safe to say that if McCain is elected President, topping the list of people "waiting to see if something explodes" will be the Iranians.