When John McCain got confused yesterday about Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda, his campaign issued a statement insisting that McCain “misspoke and immediately corrected himself.”
The explanation is far less plausible when McCain makes the same mistake and pushes the same bogus argument four times in two days.
This time, in a statement from his campaign honoring the fifth year anniversary of the war, McCain wrote:
“Today in Iraq, America and our allies stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism. The security gains over the past year have been dramatic and undeniable. Al Qaeda and Shia extremists — with support from external powers such as Iran — are on the run but not defeated.”
For those keeping score at home, McCain 1) made the claim on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show; 2) repeated the claim at a press conference in Jordan; 3) repeated the claim again at the same event (before Joe Lieberman whispered in his ear that he was wrong); and 4) in a written statement. He “misspoke”? Hardly.
Now, readers may wonder whether it’s worth piling on like this, and raising such a fuss about McCain’s confusion regarding Middle East 101. But I’d argue that this is receiving too little attention.
As Ilan Goldenberg explained, “This is a man who thinks it’s OK for us to leave a troop presence in Iraq for 100 years. He thinks that Iraq is the central struggle of our day. He thinks that all of our other interests should be subverted to sticking it out in Iraq. He is running on his foreign policy experience. Yet he doesn’t even understand who we are fighting. Is this the person we want answering the phone at 3 in the morning?”
And as for the media, NBC News’ Chuck Todd conceded this morning, “[H]ad Clinton or Obama done something like this, this would have been played on a loop, over and over.”
Media Matters had a good item today about the coverage.
And how have the media responded? Has there been wall-to-wall coverage on this major foreign policy gaffe by a politician that claims to be “ready from day one,” according to his campaign website? Hardly. As NBC News political director Chuck Todd observed, “[H]ad Clinton or Obama done something like this, this would have been played on a loop, over and over.” Some reports even offered possible excuses for McCain. In a post on his Political Punch blog, ABC News’ Jake Tapper wondered, “Jet lag?” after noting Lieberman’s correction of McCain.
“It looks like that BBQ for the press paid off,” said Karl Frisch, a spokesman for Media Matters for America and a former staffer on McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. “What exactly is it going to take for the media to treat Sen. McCain like any other candidate rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt at every turn? If a progressive had made such a serious, repeated foreign policy gaffe one thing is clear — you wouldn’t be able to open the paper, let alone turn on the television or radio, without hearing about it.”
Does anyone seriously doubt that this is true? And given this, maybe now would be a good time for producers and editors to ask why this is?