McCain shows why he’s presidential material

April 19, 2007

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recently told GQ Magazine that he’s concerned about polls or day-to-day events in the Middle East; he deserves to be president because he knows “what’s best for the security of this nation.”

And to help demonstrate what McCain thinks is best for our security, consider what the senator told an audience in South Carolina yesterday about tensions with Iran.

Sen. John McCain brought his “Straight Talk” tour to South Carolina Wednesday morning.

The presidential hopeful spent 90 minutes talking to nearly 500 people who crammed into the Murrells Inlet VFW Hall.

At the campaign rally, McCain was asked if an attack on Iran is in the works, The Georgetown Times reports.

McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular Beach Boys song.

“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann.

See? This is the kind of temperament, steady hand, and presidential stature we need in the Oval Office right now. Nothing conveys the kind of leadership the world can look up to like turning a Beach Boys song into a joke about starting a war with Iran.

Indeed, this is reminiscent of the kind of coherent foreign-policy analysis we’ve been getting from McCain on Iraq, too.

Almost a year ago, [tag]Jason Horowitz[/tag] reported in the New York Observer that [tag]McCain[/tag] met with an exclusive audience of very wealthy Republicans in New York, shortly after he was booed relentlessly at the New School’s commencement ceremony. The students weren’t terribly impressed, but apparently McCain “saved some of his best material” for the elite crowd that gathered behind closed doors in the back of the Regency Hotel.

In a small, mirror-paneled room guarded by a Secret Service agent and packed with some of the city’s wealthiest and most influential political donors, Mr. McCain got right to the point.

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the [tag]Shiites[/tag] and the [tag]Sunnis[/tag] down and say, ‘Stop the [tag]bullshit[/tag],'” said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

As Brendan Nyhan responded, “So honest! So bold! What an innovative diplomatic concept! If only John McCain were president, we’d have peace in Iraq!”

And war in Iran. McCain is quite the clever one, you know.

He isn’t even all that inventive.

“Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” has been around quite a while.

  • “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann.

    He ought to be singing “I wanna be sedated.”

    I’ll be over here humming “That joke isn’t funny any more.”

  • Answer is Orange,

    Your post is excellent. The Ramones and the Smiths referenced in two sentences.

    I am singing “Bigmouth Strikes Again”.

    Q_11

  • ***…he knows “what’s best for the security of this nation.”***

    Sure. Losing an expensive airplane over a thicher-than-mollasses jungle is a good way to prove you’re presidential material, John. The country needs to lose lots more expensive aircraft. I’ll conced that you know how to do that kind of thing. Rear-ending an aircraft carrier—that’s just psychic, John. Take out a carrier, and wipe out lots of expensive planes all at once. Too bad it didn’t work out quite right—but making you president sure would give you another chance at that—right? You could just park a whole fleet of those big, juicy aircraft carriers off the coast of Iran, and then let the Iranians do the dirty work for you. Brilliant, John. Just brilliant.

    Say, John—here’s another way you can prove yourself to be presidential timber. Draft all those mean ol’ Democrats, John—and all the poor people, too. It solves political unrest, poverty, hunger, and homelessness—all at the same time. You say you need bodies for the war—there ya go, buddy. If anything can grant you messianic status in America, then killing off all of America’s problems will work nicely. And better still, you can leave all the bodies in Iraq, John. It’ll save us billions and billions in funeral expenses alone—and if you bury them deep enough, they can become America’s next oil reserve—in about a quarter-million years.

    There’s a lot more I could add, John—but the way I see things, there’s about three hundred million people in this country who would like to take a swipe at your “presidential qualifications”—so I’ll let them have their turn at ya now.

    Kiss the nomination goodbye, John. Kiss the nomination goodbye….

  • Christ, this guy’s even more trigger-happy than Bush is. He wants to surge. He’ll want to surge again when the surge fails. He wants to bomb Iran, or at least give the impression he wants to. What’s next, bombing Domino’s when his pizza is late? Bombing the neighbors for letting their kids run across his lawn?

    When did Slim Fuckin’ Pickens become a wise old man of Washington?

  • McCain will soon be wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘5 Years at the Hanoi Hilton and all I get is this T-shirt??’

  • (and by “Slim Fuckin’ Pickens” I mean the character from Dr. Strangelove, who was apparently playing himself; I know his name in the movie was something else)

  • Actually it sounds like McCain has a cold and was flying on some kind of decongestant meds. Keep following him around with a camera; it could get interesting.

  • I was never a fan of McCain, but he really seems to lack a sense of direction these days. Does anyone else suspect that his erratic statements might indicate the early stages of dementia? Perhaps I am too inclined to think that odd behavior in seniors might be due to serious mental decline because I’ve been dealing with a parent who has Alzheimer’s for many years.

  • In regard to “sitting the Sunnis and Shiites down”, he does realize that he’s talking about millions of people with a mind-boggling web of interconnected family, regional and tribal relationships which in many cases supercede their individual allegiance to Iraq as a nation, right?

    Not to mention the political factions, each with their private armies and individual agendas.

    And a feeble national government that is hardly able to defend itself from attack let alone bring the nation together.

    Oh, and the Kurds. Lets not forget the Kurds, shall we?

    Yeah, let’s just sit that bunch down and turn them into passive little sheep. Easy, right? Shouldn’t take more than an hour or so, right, John?

    Right??

  • I’m with Swan.

    I’m not quite sure what he means by elistist, but MCCain’s comments were clearly tongue in cheek.

  • Uh, no, Neil S, I meant that I was being sarcastic.

    That he’s just joking isn’t a defense for McCain if the charge is that he’s being insensitive and stupid. What you joke about can be a symptom of what you don’t take seriously enough.

  • This is the kind of temperament, steady hand, and presidential stature we need in the Oval Office right now. Nothing conveys the kind of leadership the world can look up to like turning a Beach Boys song into a joke about starting a war with Iran

    Just what we need, another maroon. 8 years of pre-pubescent foreign policy wasn’t enough?

    Goldwater would be proud! I know I am!

  • I really believe we are watching someone unravel before our eyes. It’s not even pandering at this point, it’s madness. Before too long, they will have to send Martin Sheen on a mission up the river to kill him while he mutters, “The horror, the horror.”

  • Greetings

    “Maj. T.J. ‘King’ Kong” SAC B-52 Pilot

    I’m seeing McCain more as Sterling Hayden “Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper” who launched the renegade strike…

    But hell that’s about a dozen members of the current whack jobs running DC with our snarky Frat Boy in Chief

    Enjoy the journey

    WarLord

  • “One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’” said Mr. McCain.
    What world is this man living in? Stop the bullshit?…Yeah, and while your at it just say that to the Palestinians and Israelis and the rest of the world. I can see the headlines now…”President McCain tells the world to just stop the bullshit…as the men in the white coats finally subdued the former senator”. Is this guy pathetic or what? He’s a downright embarrassment much less a presidential candidate. I hope the rest of the world is ignoring this man.

  • If anybody needs me to be more clear, I was not calling CB an elitist, I was sarcastically making fun of conservatives for using that as a defense to everything.

    It’s gotten to the point that a conservative could do anything and they would charge us with being elitists if we complained about it.

  • McCanine: I got it. I got it.
    Gingrich: You do?
    McCanine: We’ll work up a “Number 6” on ’em.
    Gingrich: “Number 6”? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that one…
    McCanine: Well, that’s where we go a-ridin’ into Iran, a whampin’ and whompin’ every livin’ thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.
    Gingrich: You spare the women?
    McCanine: NAW. We rape the shit out of them at the Number 6 Dance later on.
    Gingrich: Marvelous.

  • At the campaign rally, McCain was asked if an attack on Iran is in the works, The Georgetown Times reports.

    McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular Beach Boys song.

    “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,” he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann.

    I really, really hope this is on YouTube. This should be McCain’s “scream” moment (ala media perception of Howard Dean’s “scream”. That is, if the media were willing to be as critical and diligent of McCain as they were of Dean.

    Anyone have a YouTube link of this?

  • I thought it was the old No. 7 dance. Either way.

    What will “Slappy” McCain find amusing next, I wonder? I wonder if he knows this good old fratboy joke:

    Frat Boy: Why do you always get a lady another drink?
    Pledge: To be a gentleman?
    Frat Boy: No, dumbass! You get her drunk so you can have sex with her!

    That would make him funny and prove he is still quite functional as a man (wink wink) even at age 70!

    McCain is definately past his ‘best by’ date.

  • McCain has personal appeal and courage and he behaved with dignity under horrible conditions in a Hanoi POW camp for many years. But let’s not forget why he was in that POW camp. He was shot down while (voluntarily) flying bombing raids that killed innocent children, women and men in a criminal war. And this is from a Vietnam vet. McCain should be the last guy singing ditties about bombing anyone.

  • McCain’s “joke” has beaten the one by Imus by a mile. Joking about nappy hair and hos doesn’t come close in offensiveness to joking about mass murder of a group of people (regardless of their nationality). I think we need to take this joker off the air!

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