I know a lot of people in politics find John McCain quite charming, thanks in large part to his biting sense of humor. If he hosts a town-hall forum, for example, and someone asks a challenging question, McCain calls the voter a “little jerk.” It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s apparently all part of the charisma.<\/p>\n
I’m curious, though, if one of these days, the senator’s acerbic sense of humor<\/a> might get him into a little trouble. <\/p>\n While waiting for cheese steaks at Pittsburgh’s Primanti Bros., famous for its thick sandwiches piled high with French fries, an Associated Press reporter asked McCain to comment on a report that U.S. exports to Iran had increased tenfold during the last seven years — with cigarettes ranking as the top export.<\/p>\n “Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” McCain responded. He quickly followed up: “I meant that as a joke, as a person who hasn’t had a cigarette in 28 years.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Greg Sargent, who has the video, responded<\/a>, “That’s not very presidential, now is it.”<\/p>\n Now, I know McCain was kidding, and it’s foolish to go berserk after every failed attempt at humor. McCain isn’t exactly making policy pronouncements with these flubbed jokes.<\/p>\n But it’s nevertheless interesting how careless McCain is with his sense of humor. The “killing them” joke about Iranians follows, of course, the “Bomb Iran” joke from a few months ago. McCain has to realize — at least, he should — that comments like these get picked up and will probably be the focus of considerable attention in Iran. Indeed, Iranians will be told that the next leader of Bush’s political party has now made multiple “jokes,” publicly, about killing Iranians.<\/p>\n Indeed, as Yglesias noted<\/a>, “If a major Iranian political leader were to repeatedly joke about bombing the United States and killing Americans, you can just imagine the shit-storm about how Iran isn’t a normal country with normal interests, that it’s run by irrational fanatics, appeasement won’t work, etc.”<\/p>\n I’d just add that McCain’s use of humor has been problematic for quite a while. Last year, McCain appeared on “The Daily Show,” and joked to Jon Stewart that he’d intended to bring an improvised explosive device “to put on your desk<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Earlier this year, McCain joked about waterboarding his staff<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n
\nIn 1998, for example, at a Republican Senate fundraiser, McCain thought he was very clever when he told a nasty, tasteless joke about Chelsea Clinton<\/a>, describing the president’s daughter as “ugly,” and suggesting that Janet Reno is a man. <\/p>\n