How Many "Gaffes" Equal Incompetence?

John McCain screwed up on Foreign Policy 101 AGAIN. Yesterday at the AP annual meeting, McCain said he would defer any decision to General Petraeus over whether troops should be shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan in order to intensify the search for Osama bin Laden. Only problem is that this is not Petraeus's job, as he has stated before.

By my count, this makes 6 times this month that McCain has screwed up basic foreign policy facts...the other 5 being various conflations of who exactly is fighting in Iraq.

As Hertzberg says today: It's easy to say one word when you mean to say another, nearly identical word, but it's impossible to repeatedly misspeak an entire anecdote -- or, as in McCain's case, an entire strategic reality.

Couple that with remarks made by leading conservative thinkers in the New York Times last week. They claim that McCain "is not as fully formed on his foreign policy as his campaign advisers say he is, and that while he speaks authoritatively, he operates too much off the cuff and has not done the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate."

This is not deep homework, and has nothing to do with running for President. For John McCain to make this many mistakes while holding an important national security post as Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee is simply unacceptable. These types of mistakes would prevent John McCain from getting a job as a research assistant at any think tank in D.C., let alone delivering anything resembling a responsible foreign policy as president.

The brilliant minds of the punditry seem content to ignore this pattern or question it in any way, despite the fact that McCain is repeatedly screwing up the very platform upon which he claims to run. I'm all for having a healthy conversation about why McCain makes these mistakes, but the first step is admitting that it is wrong, irresponsible, and unacceptable. It is the "job," after all, of talking heads to hold our leaders accountable. This is much more than a "gaffe." This is demonstrated and repeated incompetent behavior that has very real consequences.

I, for one, am pretty bitter that it's not getting any airtime.

Comments

[meanguy]

this would be a good question to ask of obama...ties to crook rezko...20 years with his racist, america hating pastor...explaining the pasor controversy by throwing his 'typical white' grandmother under the bus, working with domestic terrorist ayers...calling the middle class is a bunch of bitter, gun-toting, bible thumping bigots...

[americanwhocares]

meanclown, how much do you get paid to "troll" intelligent sites like HuffingtonPost to spew your stupid right wing lies? If I tried to post an intelligent "liberal" comments on Bill O'Rielly website, it would never see the light of day. You wingnuts are truly pathetic and have come very close to destroying America. We are at the edge of an abyss and it appears only Obama can pull us back and restore honesty, and dignity to the American spirit. I pray to God that happens in November 2008.

[procrustes]

Mr. Mean,

If you have your way (I'm assuming you're a McCain guy), how do you envision the world after eight years of him? What will change and how?

[GrainOSand]

A Classic

Boy: Mr. Cow...
Mr. Cow: Yeeeeesss?
Boy: How many gaffes equate to incompetence?
Mr. Cow: I don't know, I always end up biting. Ask Mr. Fox, for he's much clever than I.
Boy: Mr. Fox, how many gaffes equate to incompetence?
Mr. Fox: Why don't you ask Mr. Turtle, for he's been around a lot longer than I? Me, heheh, I bite.
Boy: Mr. Turtle, how many gaffes equate to incompetence?
Mr. Turtle: I've never even made it without biting. Ask Mr. Owl, for he is the wisest of us all.
Boy: Mr. Owl, how many?
Mr. Owl: A good question. Let's find out. One... two-HOO... three..
(crunch sound effect)
Mr. Owl: Three!
Boy: If there's anything I can't stand, it's a smart owl.
Narrator: How many gaffes are required to equal incompetence?
(crunch sound effect)
Narrator: The world may never know.

[Rog49Thomas]

If competence and absence of delusion were a test for office, one could fit the Senate and Congress in a phone booth.

Fortunately for this exercise (but not our country) no room would have to be made for members of the Executive Branch.

[schatsie]

Of course, it is not incompetent to go to War with Iraq and forget about Saudi Arabia (like Bush did).....

Of course, it is not incompetent to ignore the PDB about BIN LADEN attacking the US...

Of course, it is not incompetent to ignore that fact that Al Quada Attacked the Cole 10 months before 9/11.

Of course, it is not incompetent to cut taxes on the wealthy during a war.

Of course, it is not incompetent to take 30% of the electricity off line in California and then increase the electricity rates by a factor of 20....

Of course it is not incompetent to pay $100 per load of laundry...
They are laughing all the way to the bank and don't you forget it....

[procrustes]

Lookit, Moira--we're just going with what works, here. What about that don't you understand? We loved our last senile president so much we named the nations capital airport after him before he was-a-molderin'-inna-grave. If''n it was good once, it oughtta be great the second time round.

[jubo]

Incompetence? He's past disaster and onto catastrophe.

[indc]

These mistakes are a warning that McCain's cognitive functions have deteriorated and will continue to do so probably at a more rapid rate... learning and retaining anything new will be extremely difficult for him and implusive behavior will become more common... this is not a trivial situation, and he has refused to release his medical records, so this also support this observation... given his flash temper and imprudent behavior, he presents a real danger...

[americanwhocares]

That's why he will pick Lieberman as his VP. Then Isreal will control this great country.

[S1m0n]

" How Many "Gaffes" Equal Incompetence?"

All of them.

[pedrothemigrant]

oh sweet jebus, if anybody in their right mind thinks this meaningless non-sense will make ANYONE change their mind about mclame, you need to stack the gaffes of the other two by his side. pedro rest his case. besides, pedro want to see mclame beat the piss out ahmedinejad and kim jong il at the same time. oh, and he's not a goddamn commie

[MrJoyboy]

I think it could be great fun having a president with dementia. We almost got there with Reagan. Think of the entertainment value.

[richw23]

Yeah, the media goes for blood in the water, not simple incompetence. The only furor I heard over the "bitter" remarks were from the media, McCain, and of course Hillary. Actual remarka about real issues that reveal ignorance just aren't that interesting. Maybe it has already been discounted and deemed irrelevant to his appeal

[xdevildawg4u]

Yet ANOTHER Hillary supporter campaigning for McCain.

The more I see Hillary and McCain the more I realize how much alike they are.

Maybe McCain will choose Hillary as his running mate once she is finally dragged out of the Democratic convention kicking and screaming.

At this point it's her ONLY way of getting anywhere near the White House.

[PioneerKing]

MOIRA:

McCain has made so many substantive gaffes that they could fill the Grand Canyon if they were printed on paper. Unfortunately, your collegues have given Sen. McCain a pass because they like him and they are afraid to challenge a former prisoner of war on anything.
As Chuck Todd likes to say about McCain's creditibility on national security and foreign affairs "...Sen. McCain has plenty in the bank."
Whatever it is that the media feels Sen. McCain has banked must be locked up in safe deposit boxes at the National Bank of Political Expediency located on the corner of 5th and bullshit.

[peterg76]

It's not like any of these people live in reality anyway.

[rh654]

The reason why his issues aren't getter air-time are pretty simple - the Democrats are still fighting it out and Hillary is giving the Press all of the fodder they need right now and there is no Democrat Nominee to go after McCain on these issues

[jammerbirdi]

Obama steps into this mess largely because he is unseasoned and untested by being a presence on the national stage for any significant length of time.

He obviously doesn"t know that the inability to shake this effete out-of-touch elitist image that these very people he is talking about DO have of Democratic politicians has been the downfall of the party in presidential elections past and has enabled the Republicans to define themselves, incredibly, as being more in-touch with these vast numbers of middle-of-the-road Americans.

This is like that old family poison for the Democratic party. It"s literally an image that helped create the Reagan Democrat and it"s how and why Ronald Reagan won two elections and why his VP, George H.W. Bush, was able to extend the Republican reign to twelve long years by winning in "98.

http://jammerbirdi.wordpress.com/