McCain’s Iran song ‘bombs’

April 20, 2007

To my surprise, John McCain’s little song about bombing Iran actually turned into a real news story. What do you know.

Sen. John McCain has a message for any critics who thought his musical joke about bombing Iran wasn’t funny: Get a life.

While campaigning for president in South Carolina on Wednesday, McCain responded to a question about how to deal with Iran by breaking into the melody of the Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann” but changing the lyrics to “Bomb Iran.”

“That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, ‘Bomb Iran,”‘ McCain joked and then added: “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb … anyway, ah …” The audience responded with laughter.

The Arizona Republican was asked for his reaction to any negative response to the joke when he arrived in Las Vegas for a fundraiser Thursday night.

“Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends,” he told reporters. “My response is, Lighten up and get a life.”

When reporters asked if the joke was insensitive, McCain said, “Insensitive to what? The Iranians?”

Ah, can’t you just feel the seriousness of McCain’s foreign policy expertise? Isn’t it great to hear how much the senator appreciates Americans’ apprehension about starting yet another war in the Middle East?

Look, I know McCain was kidding with his little song. I didn’t see the clip and assume he actually planned to start the bombing raids the day after his inauguration. But this has become an issue for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that it undercuts his main selling point as a candidate.

Ezra noted yesterday that the NYT’s David Brooks praised McCain as someone more serious about Middle East politics than the other candidates. Brooks described the senators as the “most mature” presidential aspirant. Likewise, as Steve M. noted, Peggy Noonan praised McCain for being “a serious man addressing a serious issue in a serious way.”

If McCain wants to be that guy, he doesn’t get to sing about bombing Iran. As a Fox News personality said this morning, McCain starts to sound like “a crazy old man.”

But if he was really just kidding around, and this is just some overreaction to a harmless joke, shouldn’t the political world cut him some slack? Not according to McCain’s own standards.

When Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) botched a joke about military service last fall, McCain was among Kerry’s first and most vocal critics. McCain repeatedly said that even if Kerry was joking, he should still apologize.

Best of all, MoveOn.org is remarkably quick and is planning to air an ad in Iowa and New Hampshire on McCain’s botched joke.

The group is spending approximately $100,000 on the ad buy and will air the 30 second spot all next week on affiliates and some cable channels in the early voting states, MoveOn spokesman Alex Howe said.

The ad reruns the presidential candidate’s parody of the Beach Boys’ song “Baraba Ann” (McCain substituted “Bomb Iran” for “Barbara Ann”) at a South Carolina town-hall Wednesday night. An announcer then is heard saying, “John McCain? We can’t afford another reckless president.”

“At a tense moment, when cooler heads in his own party and many retired military leaders are calling on the President to negotiate with Iran, Senator McCain’s outburst isn’t merely inappropriate, it’s dangerous,” said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org Political Action, said in a statement.

The ad is online and it’s pretty darn good. Stay tuned.

Unfortunately a large segment of America thinks that kind of “humor” is really funny. And they think it’s harmless, because we would never bomb anyone for no reason, right?

Never!

Sam Johnson made the same “joke” only worse (he said we should nuke Syria) and got away with it, and he’s still infesting the House.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/003628.html

A lot of American people like this kind of asshole. McCain is playing to the base he needs to win the primaries.

  • Add this to the McCanine fli-flop list (re response to Kerry’s botched joke)!

    What if some Iranian Mullah sang some song about bombing the US. How would the nutjobs on the right here in the US react to that?

  • ***What if some Iranian Mullah sang some song about bombing the US.***
    ———————-bubba

    Sounds like a job for “Wierd Al” Yankovic. He’s ripped the rappers, lasered the Jedi, and blasphemed the Amish. I suppose he could do a really good job of “ramp-striking” McCaca….

  • …he doesn’t get to sign about bombing Iran.

    Dang. I didn’t see the video clip either, but the fact that McCain used sign languague while he peformed his little ballad is really impressive. Who knew that he had such abilities? 😉

    (its Friday: a little teasing is okay, right Mr. Carpetbagger?)

  • In an ironic and strange way, we’re lucky to be in Iraq. What I mean is — assuming Bush was goiing to invade some nation — the invasion of Iraq was like a T-ball game. We knew everything about it, it was militarily weak, we had total control of the air and a multitude of horrific weapons. Iraq on a tee.

    Think for a moment what might be or have been if Bush had chosen a nation to invade that was a REAL threat to America, such as Iran or North Korea. (I’m not sure *any* nation is a real threat to America. Terrorists a a different matter.)

    As it is, we have the “luxury” of debating the wisdom of a “surge” and a timeline for extraction. The Iraqis are fighting each other and producing far more casualties among themselves than among American troops.

    This confirms that Bush’s war was indeed a war of choice, a political stunt, and recreational.

  • Alibubba, I do agree. But I have a real strong feeling that Bush and Cheney, as all bullies are, are in actuality chickenshits who would not have had the balls to attack a country that could actually fight back. Iraq was selected specifically because they knew it did not have any real defenses and because they thought it would be a cakewalk with no resistance. It was selected for PR value, that is it. And they failed at that.

  • bubba: Yeah, that’s what I meant. You’re exactly right. These guys picked the nerdy kid with glasses and a limp.

    A common and repeated mistake is to underestimate an enemy. The Germans did it, the Brits did it, the French did it, and the Americans have done it twice in my lifetime. You have to wonder, don’t these guys have some kind of institutional memory? Is it too much to expect competence?

    Reminds me of a term a teacher friend of mine jokingly used. We were talking about the numbers of students who simply have no interest in an education and how nice it would be to cull them from classrooms and send them off to trade school. The term he used was “academic cleansing.”

  • Racerx, I know you are right that a certain segment loves this juvenile machismo in their leaders, but I hope – and I really believe – that after Bush, that segment is smaller and shrinking. The casualties in Iraq have reminded many small, tightly-woven communities around the country that war is not a video game, is not a laughing matter. Fewer people want someone who jokes about war making decisions about the lives or deaths of their sons and daughters. I hope a lot of parents of the war dead open up on McCan’t after this.

  • Bubba (#2) said: “What if some Iranian Mullah sang some song about bombing the US?”

    I suggest this song (in consideration of the ages Sen. McCain, his core constituency, and I’m giving mine away by knowing this one:

    Parody of The Dinah Shore Show commercial theme song – “See the USA.”

    “Bomb the USA.
    And their Chevrolets,
    We’re glad that you could make it to our shore.”
    Etc., etc.

  • “Insensitive to what? The Iranians?”

    Tom Tancredo: “Dammit. I just lost 5% of my uneducated, inhumanly hateful, bigoted base. Oh, it’s ON, John! Bring it!”

  • Even Reagan got in trouble for joking about bombing another country, and McCain’s no Reagan.

    McCain doesn’t even get any points for originality; that particular little ditty was first recorded in 1979 by Vince Vance and the Valiants. Got some play on the Dr. Demento Show during the hostage crisis.

  • Think for a moment what might be or have been if Bush had chosen a nation to invade that was a REAL threat to America, such as Iran or North Korea.

    That’s exactly why he didn’t invade the other Axii of Evil. That’s exactly why the only response the Completely-Impotent-Crackpot could make to NoKo exploding a small nuke was “That’s provactive!” And in turn that is why Iran talks about its nuke program all of the time.

    Heh. Talk about a nuclear deterrent.

  • Isn’t this the same country that, just three years ago, rejected a presidential candidate who shouted too loudly in a noisy room?

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