McCain’s Gerald Ford Moment

March 22, 2008

I’ve seen some reporters give John McCain some pretty foolish passes before, but this is just irritating.

During the March 20 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, while discussing Sen. John McCain’s admittedly false claim on March 18 that “[i]t’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and is receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran,” MSNBC senior campaign correspondent Tucker Carlson asserted, “This is ridiculous. He misspoke.”

After host Chris Matthews asked, “Did he do it on purpose? Did he conflate on purpose, like the terrorists with 9-11 and Iraq?” USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page asserted, “I think it’s a verbal error. And, you know, most Americans can’t tell you the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, either.”

First, as we’ve all heard plenty of times by now, McCain didn’t “misspeak” or commit a “verbal error.” He publicly repeated the same bogus line, over and over again, until eventually apologizing after Joe Lieberman corrected him. If you screw up once, it’s a gaffe. If you make the same mistake four times in three weeks, it’s actual confusion.

But for the Washington bureau chief of a major newspaper to dismiss this because “most Americans can’t tell you the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, either,” is just painful. McCain has been in Congress for a quarter-century and he’s now close to becoming the commander in chief in the midst of two wars in the Middle East. Having a clue about al Qaeda’s and Iran’s sectarian backgrounds isn’t too much to ask.

Susan Page is right, most Americans probably can’t tell you which is which, and wouldn’t have picked up on McCain’s mistake without help from knowledgeable reporters. But therein lies the rub: most Americans aren’t running for president. The fact that a presidential candidate is just as confused about the Middle East as the typical Joe isn’t a good thing.

CQ’s estimable Jeff Stein, who has done some fine work highlighting the confusion of public officials on Sunni/Shiite issues, noted yesterday that McCain appears “divorced from reality,” and the senator’s claims about al Qaeda are both “absurd” and “backwards.”

But more importantly, Stein thinks they sounded kind of familiar.

To some, the Republican candidate’s strange behavior was a replay of that historic 1976 campaign gaffe, when President Gerald R. Ford declared that Poland was “independent and autonomous” from the Soviet Union. Millions of Poles found that surprising.

Ford had a chance to regroup, but he passed it up. He insisted that “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.”

You could still hear the guffaws at the polling booth…. Gerald Ford never recovered from his Polish moment, and lost to former Georgia Gov. and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter.

Believe me, I’d love nothing more than for McCain’s screw-up to be as consequential as Ford’s, but it’s highly unlikely. As Stein conceded, “Ford stumbled at the climax of both campaigns, when millions of Americans were riveted to the television debate. In contrast, McCain’s moment occurred far away, and involved issues too complicated for most Americans to understand, not to mention members of Congress and national security officials themselves.”

Quite right. I’d add just one thing: the press lambasted Ford for being a sitting president, in the midst of the Cold War, being this confused about Soviet influence in Eastern Europe during a nationally televised debate. In contrast, journalists are prepared to give McCain a get-out-of-embarrassment-free card, and justify his ignorance by a) telling Americans he simply “misspoke” when he clearly did not; and b) arguing that Americans don’t know the difference anyway.

If Ford caught this kind of break from the national media, he would have likely won a second term.

Bush in 1999 and 2000 did worse, and the media gave him a pass too. The power elite have chosen McSame, and that’s who we’ll get one way or another.

  • Advice to Barack Obama: throw a barbeque for reporters at some exclusive location, get them all liquored up and have them stuff their faces silly. The fate of this nation can be bought for the price of some greasy ribs and a few beers.

    For all the criticism the press angled at Bill Clinton for a blowjob, they’re awfully good at giving them themselves.

    Susan Page should be shot at dawn. “And, you know, most Americans can’t tell you the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, either.” Well you know, presidential candidates are not “most Americans.” For Joe Sixpack to make that remark is inconsequential, but for a guy seeking the power to throw this nation into war, I’d expect him to know exactly what the damn difference is between a Shiite and a Sunni. A whole lot of lives depend on that.

  • Oh, I am so confused. Does that mean we were actually attacked by Klingons on 9/11 and should have attacked the Spartans?

  • hmmm. i have a comment stuck in active moderation limbo. so let me see if it is just a red-flag matter and try it this way:

    the intelligence besmirching of America reaches its ultimate result: Presidents who would lose on “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”

    I wonder who the next superpower will be once Americans are only good for menial labor?

  • The real issue within this, as I see it, is that the CORPORATE / REPIGLICAN MEDIA is also very busy trying to ‘present’ McCain based on his so called ‘foreign policy’ strength and credentials so as to undercut both Obama and Clinton. Yet that itself is pure fucking invention on behalf of his CORPORATE HANDLERS CALLED THE ‘MEDIA ELITE’ who have an invested interest in getting this corporate boy installed as the next president so that a GOVERNMENT BY AND FOR THE FEW, GREED, CAN BE SUSTAINED. If anyone actually takes the time to educate themselves about McCain and his sol called strength and expertise on foreign policy it will leave you with the knowledge that this guy actually knows nothing and, in fact, would be clear and present danger to the security of our country. Simply go back, for example, and read about what he was saying about going to war with Iraq in the first place: peddling the lie that it would be over is six months, that we would be greeted as ‘liberators’ , that he totally supported and backed that criminal called Chalabi, and all the other fucking propaganda at that time that was being issued by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, the Corporate Media itself. And, as the racist toxic pig called Pat Buchannen himself pointed out McInsane would be ‘bush on steroids’ as it applies to the NeoCon ‘vision’ of dominating the world.

    The Corporate / Repiglican Media has almost become like a criminal enterprise akin to something like the mafia. They are purposefully lying, deceiving, and manipulating public perceptions in order to benefit their chosen one: McInsane. They have utterly contrived this bullshit about Obama and the pastor Wright while at the same time dismissing McInsanes’ ‘spiritual advisors’ in the form of Hagee and Pawsley. They are indeed, to me, the ‘new axis of evil’ and they should be charged, tried, and convicted for purposefully, criminal, fraud committed against our once great country called America.

  • The Rev. Wright sermon can be seen on Youtube. The audio clips we have been hearing are fake. They have been edited together from a 3 minute segment. Reverend Wright is quoting people, not expressing his beliefs.

  • Exactly … no different that the infamous ‘dean scream’ where the corporate/ repiglican media totally cut out the screaming crowd that dean was in front of that made him scream the way he did .. so they cut this out and the ‘presented’ their contrived and ‘edited’ work to the public as if it were real ……….and then destroyed dean …………same thing here with pastor wright and obama

  • “In contrast, McCain’s moment occurred far away, and involved issues too complicated for most Americans to understand, not to mention members of Congress and national security officials themselves.”

    Are you kidding me? That’s like saying my doctor is great at gall bladder surgery but cann’t tell the difference between cancer and a cold sore because it’s too arcane. If he’s going to be my doctor he damn well better know the difference. My life may and probably will depend on it.

  • As CB notes,

    Susan Page is right, most Americans probably can’t tell you which is which, and wouldn’t have picked up on McCain’s mistake without help from knowledgeable reporters

    While we have only been in Iraq for five years, America had been in the Cold War for about thirty years when Ford made his mistake. Hence citizens immediately understood it was a mistake. They did not depend on the press to tell them that it was. This is the primary difference between the Ford and McCain mistakes. Today citizens are more dependent on the press for their understanding of world events and unfortunately the press isn’t up to the job.

  • Not to mention that McCain’s people walked back the walkback and later claimed that McCain’s gaffe was true. They are either confused or mendacious. McCain has his own mental fog of war. He’s got hardening of the attitudes.

  • “… most Americans can’t tell you the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, either.”

    In November 1958, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave the West six months to make Berlin a free, demilitarized city. At the end of that period, President Eisenhower reacted by saying that if one Russian soldier set foot in West Berlin, we would retaliate with total nuclear war (in the postwar years we had responded to a similar threat to close ground access to the city with the Berlin airlift).

    According to a NY Times poll something like 85% of Americans supported their president’s “massive relation” policy. After asking the “support” question, the NYT pollster showed the respondent three simplified maps of Germany, with a vertical division line between East and West. Something like 89% of those who supported Ike believed Berlin to be either on that East-West line or inside West Germany (rather than 300 miles inside East Germany).

    My point: for whatever reason, most Americans don’t know much about anything (including, according to one recent study, where their own nation or state is on a global map or who represents them in Congress).

    That’s why we traditionally have left foreign policy to experts, except when our foreign policy impinges on domestic matters (e.g., NAFTA, and even then the public is largely ignored). There are countless tribal and sub-tribal divisions and hostilities within the Shi’a, issues which mean much more to them in terms of ancient grudges and hostilities, than even most “experts” are aware of.

    I would think that, by now, Americans would be tired of the kinds of “gotcha” questions people like Tim Russert have made a career of. Anyone can look up anything in Wikipedia and retain it for the smackdown when the opportunity arises. So what? It would help, too, if more politicians would just admit that no one is omniscient and only the Pope should be expected to pontificate.

  • To paraphrase Warner Bros. cartoons, “Liberals is the craziest people!” I’m still waiting for some “liberal” or some “reporter” in the Democrat media to explain Obama’s own “gaffe” regarding Iran:

    Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.

    Now, Obama has received the endorsement of the LGBT lobby. Fine.

    I have a question for the “liberals”: how is this not a gaffe by Obama? After all, members of the Iranian government have said they don’t have any homosexuals in Iran, then proceed to prove it…by hanging homosexuals…for being homosexuals. Not even those whom “liberals” would say spread hate against homosexuals, and not the Bush administration or the evil “Darth” Cheney, call for the hanging of homosexuals for any reason, and definitely not for being homosexuals, nor have they actually had homosexuals…unlike the government of Iran. Again, how is this not a gaffe by Obama?

    (And by the way, forget mentioning Saudi Arabia; both sides of the aisle hypocritically, and yes I do call it that, support the Saudis, including those guarantors of special homosexual rights, the Democrats.)

    Which leads me to another question. Why are “liberals” so willing to believe the Iranian government when their leaders (and I will repeat it) have said they don’t have any homosexuals in Iran, then proceed to prove it…by hanging homosexuals…for being homosexuals.

    Let me put it another way, in the words of the character Frank Pentangeli in The Godfather Part II, after being told by Michael to be fair to the Rosato brothers:

    How can you be fair with animals?

  • McCain’s good friend Lieberman may be the best thing that Democrats have going right now. Correcting him in public and always holding his arm like he’s a doddering old guy gives us good visuals on the age and confusion issue.

  • “Susan Page is right, most Americans probably can’t tell you which is which, and wouldn’t have picked up on McCain’s mistake without help from knowledgeable reporters. But therein lies the rub: most Americans aren’t running for president. The fact that a presidential candidate is just as confused about the Middle East as the typical Joe isn’t a good thing.” – Mr. CB

    The “rub” is that it should be Susan Page and her media clones who should be appalled that at 5 years and counting, so many people in this country are ignorant about who’s who and what’s really going on because they have done such a piss poor job of imparting information and telling truth.

    If “most Americans probably can’t tell you which is which” regarding Sunnis and Shiites Ms. Page, what does that statement say about the ability of you and your Bar-B-Q scarffing buddies to tell a story when the plot is right in front of you, the FACTS are plain to see and all you have to do is put it down on paper?

    Ms. Page, as a reporter, you suck. As a story teller, you suck. As a truth teller, you suck. As a myth making butt kisser you excel and all that goes for your “knowledgeable” but pathologically ineffective reporter consorts as well. The internet has pushed to expose the arrogant ignorance, (who does that remind you of?), of McBush, not the print media.

    And check out the Bill Maher clip that TR links to at 3. It accomplishes more in two minutes than Susan Page has done in 5 years.

  • Susan Page is exactly right – most Americans CAN’T tell the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, and that is why McCain keeps planting thoughts in their dim little heads that will translate into reality, with enough repetition. Bush played on the electorate’s general unawareness of pretty much everything that goes on outside the U.S. border to perfection, and you can still find people who think he’s some kind of fucking visionary, who “knows things” that escape the researchers and the scientists.

    And SteveL, you irritating git, what makes you think ANYBODY believes Ahmedinijad when he says there are no homosexuals in Iran, much less only “liberals”? You start out reasonable and begin to build a constructive argument, but then your irrational hate of liberals takes over, and you blow it with some patently ridiculous statement like that. Everybody, including liberals – not surprising, since the high-IQ crowd is generally democratic; that’s why the dimmer element refers to them contemptuously as “elitists” – knows there are homosexuals everywhere. It is only the degree of secrecy they must maintain that is determined by the country in which they live. Also, if a pathological loathing of homosexuals makes a people “animals”, well, you don’t have to look very far to find them; certainly not as far as Iran. I’d like to believe you’re a thinking human being with something important to say, but more often you seem to simply be trying to draw an angry reaction, and are unconcerned with what you say to do it.

    Anyway, back to the original argument. McCain is nowhere near as dumb as Bush, and he’s been around the Washington circuit long enough to know what’s what. He may bnot be completely up to speed on foreign policy, but I’m sure that Al Qaeda/Iran thing has been pointed out to him before now – most people who plan to make a speech or public statement try it out on someone first. He knows quite well that a lot of Americans will believe whatever he says about those terrible brown people over in Sandyland, and so he says it.

  • Bill Maher’s New Rules went hard after John McCain for his repeated misstatements on the Iran/al Qaeda connection on Friday’s episode of Real Time:

    New Rule: Old soldiers never die, they get young soldiers killed. This week John McCain said for the third time in two days, that Iran, a Shi’ite stronghold was training al Qaeda a militant Sunni organization. That the Hatfields of the Muslim world would be working with the McCoys is so not true even Dick Cheney hasn’t said it. Now the press, which loves McCain because he feeds them BBQ, dismissed this as just one of those senior moments. Not to worry, he’s only going to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. But it’s not just a ‘gaffe,’ it’s what McCain really thinks. And therein lies the paradox of this campaign: McCain’s strength is really his weakness. He’s a warrior who’s dumb about war. Whoever read The Art of War, chapter three of The Art of War says, “Know thy enemy.” And John McCain plainly doesn’t. He thinks the solution is our presence in the Middle East. No, the problem is our presence in the Middle East. That’s why I don’t care if John McCain is better than Bush on global warming or torture or campaign finance, because he’s exactly the same as Bush on the war. They both don’t get the same thing. As long as we’re setting up shop in the heart of the Arab world, we’re not keeping America safer. Bin Laden goes ballistic over cartoons in Danish newspapers, and Goober and Grandpa want to put up a Hooters in Fallujah. They don’t “hate us for our freedom,” they hate us for our fiefdom. Winning the War on Terror comes down to this: what will make us safer from pissed off Arab teenagers who are willing to die? There are a number of good answers to that question, but occupying their land for the next 100 years is not one of them.

    Some people look at McCain and see a tough guy who is going to protect us from the “Islamofascists.” I look at him and see a walking Tom Clancy action figure who is going to get us all killed. And yet a new poll shows that a majority of Americans believe John McCain is the candidate best qualified to answer when that red phone rings at 3:00 a.m., because he’d be up anyway, trying to pee. Yes, 55% of Americans think it’s McCain who should answer that phone, because they know John McCain is a warrior. He will not waver or hesitate. He will answer that phone and give the order that sends men to die and it will turn out to be a recording asking him if he’s happy with his mortgage.

  • Mark (#16): And SteveL, you irritating git, what makes you think ANYBODY believes Ahmedinijad when he says there are no homosexuals in Iran, much less only “liberals”? You start out reasonable and begin to build a constructive argument, but then your irrational hate of liberals takes over, and you blow it with some patently ridiculous statement like that. Because it is the “liberals”, including Obama, who are willing to give Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government a pass in spite of what the Iranian government does. There isn’t a conservative who would talk to the nuts running Iran without a precondition, because doing so would be stupid.

    By the way, I don’t hate “liberals”. Just the phony philosophy that “liberals” believe, the one that they call “liberalism” (it isn’t at all liberal, which is why I put the quotes around it).

    Also, if a pathological loathing of homosexuals makes a people “animals”, well, you don’t have to look very far to find them; certainly not as far as Iran. Oh, I know where you’re going with this. That’s why I pre-empted you in my comment. Those whom “liberals” say loathe homosexuals in this country don’t hang them, and don’t have them hanged. Which is a far cry from what is going on in Iran. And I don’t refer to a people as “animals”, only the upper levels of the Iranian government (which is actually insulting to the animals).

    So, I still want to know why what Obama wants to do regarding Iran is theoretically not a gaffe.

  • SteveIL, the only reason they don’t hang them here is because we try and keep the govt secular, your own bible says that gays should be killed as well, thank goodness for the wall between church and state we have otherwise this country would be no better than Iran.

    Obama speaking to iranian leaders is like a nixon in china moment a chance to effect change in iran without having to invade, Iran once was moving to a real democracy before US toppled it, maybe we can begin to try and correct that mistake

  • SteveIL, SteveIL, SteveIL. . .

    Lets assume you are absolutely correct that the present Iranian administration is the most cruelly and violently anti-homosexual administration to ever exist anywhere.

    How is it a “gaffe” for Obama to suggest that one way to impact the Iranian regime is to have a frank discussion? You can disagree as to whether that will be productive or counterproductive, or whether there are better strategies (you and your wingnut pals want to use military force to save the gays now do you?) But how is it a “gaffe”?

    Could it really work any less than what BushCo has been doing? Indeed, had Bush talked with the much more moderate Khatami regime rather than undermining it with his childish “Axis of Evil” rhetoric, Ahmadinijad likely would never have come to power in the first place.

    Sometimes talking is a reasonable approach, sometimes it isn’t, but the line is hardly so clear that keeping the option open is a “gaffe.” That’s more than a stretch — it is an indictment of your credibility.

  • But for the Washington bureau chief of a major newspaper to dismiss this because “most Americans can’t tell you the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, either,” is just painful.

    Classic example of how punditry works, in practice. The absolute rule is, “My job is not to say what I think, but what I think The Public will think.” She doesn’t in any way feel called upon to bring her own knowledge and expertise about the real situation to bear on the substantive question of McCain’s factual error. There is no reason in her mind to touch upon the fact that McCain was using this trope repeatedly before being brought up short on it, which she certainly knows. Why? Because no one in the public knows any of those things. And all that is at issue in her mind is How will this play? That is the one and ONLY presupposition of all questions and answers on these shows. They are always only ever responding to How It Will Play.

    It’s a great way to do two things: 1) Help control How It Will Play by treating topics as of greater or lesser importance based on an entirely-in-their-heads model of what the public reaction would/should be. 2) Excuse themselves from having to know anything concrete about anything, and therefore from having to be responsible for refereeing the truth, even when the factual errors are so mammoth as to beggar description.

    As many have observed, it’s a hellofa nice gig.

  • Ignorance tends to endear Presidential candidates to the common, American man/woman. Sad, but true.

  • By the way, I don’t hate “liberals”. Just the phony philosophy that “liberals” believe, the one that they call “liberalism” (it isn’t at all liberal, which is why I put the quotes around it).

    Someone’s been reading his Jonah Goldberg, I see. The jig’s up, guys, he’s on to us!

    Dude–You’ve fallen into a nest of crypto fascists here–escape while you can!

  • right to have as a philosophy the ‘common good’ versus personal greed and fuck every one else .. boy that sure is phone isn’t it ?

  • right to have as a philosophy the ‘common good’ versus personal greed and fuck every one else .. boy that sure is phony isn’t it ?

  • She doesn’t in any way feel called upon to bring her own knowledge and expertise about the real situation to bear on the substantive question of McCain’s factual error. There is no reason in her mind to touch upon the fact that McCain was using this trope repeatedly before being brought up short on it, which she certainly knows. Why?

    Because she’s lazy, and her bosses let her get away with being lazy.

    SASQ

  • her bosses want her to do exactly what she is doing in order to protect mccain …

  • I know the discussion on this thread is long gone… but I just wanted to pose a question to SteveIL:

    Do you remember what Castro said when he resigned? I think it was my favorite quote of the millennium thus far. I can’t remember it exactly, but it was something to the effect of I wouldn’t have stayed here so long, but it so obviously pissed everyone off…

    Chew on that anecdote while you think about a proper resolution to the situation in Iran.

    Okay… Sanctions haven’t worked (here’s a clue, the people they punish are not the people you’re worried about- it’s the poor and marginalized who suffer, those who would benefit most from American involvement in Iran)… Threats haven’t worked…. Iraq showed that war in the Middle East is probably (read: definitely) a quagmire we shouldn’t get further into.

    I’m curious. What do you think we have to lose by initiating aggressive diplomacy with Iran? I’m not talking about giving them the keys to the house or anything, I’m talking about sitting down with them, face to face, and starting a conversation. This isn’t some arrogant rhetorical question, I really do want to know why you think diplomacy is such a bad thing.

  • Given SteveIL’s diplomatic skills, so clearly on display here, it’s not surprising he doesn’t see how diplomacy could produce a good result.

  • As far as I can make out, SteveIL is not dumb, that’s what’s so maddening. It’s enough to make your blood boil to see someone who appears otherwise smart regurgitating talking points.

    If America is now going to become all moist and upset because Iran executes homosexuals, all I can say is that it’s a little late in the game. That’s right, Republicans, I’m talking to you. Take a good hard look at who your friends are in the Middle East, and elsewhere. I’m afraid you’ll find that hanging people because of their sexual orientation is by no means the worst of it, but America quite often looks the other way when the despot in question will allow an American base to be built in his country, or overflights by American aircraft on their way to bomb somebody else.

    As far as Obama’s monumental “gaffe”, well, it seems the righties have just learned that word – they sure do like it. In response, I’d only say that the current approach – go in with supposedly overwhelming force and hammer them into changing their ways – is all the way across town from working; not even a little bit. A country that believes itself superior in every way – militarily, morally and spiritually, need have no fear in negotiation. Besides, the United States is – theoretically – not being asked to give up anything, except the opportunity to kick the crap out of Iran. It’s not like Obama wants to set up a deal whereby Iran will stop executing homosexuals and make some concrete advances in human rights, whereupon the United States will adopt Islam as its official religion. As I see it, the U.S. would negotiate something like, “we won’t attack you, if you make a few simple changes”. The Bush/Cheney crowd want to go with a big attack first, and then say, “pack in the human rights violations, or we’ll wreck some more stuff”. Frankly, I doubt the United States’ ability to prosecute a successful attack on Iran without going nuclear. And I doubt Bush or Cheney care too much about a few homos getting hung – remember, this is the party of morals, who believes homosexuality is a sin against God. The human rights stuff is just window dressing; they’ve already decided a new front in the War on Terror is needed because America is getting too lazy and comfortable, with only a looming recession to occupy it.

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