John McCain Is Not Only Dishonest and Dishonorable But Also the Stupidest Man Alive--Save for His Foreign Policy Advisor Randy Scheunemann

For some reason, Glenn Kessler and Ed O'Keefe won't say up front what is really going on--that John McCain found himself, for some reason, at sea and that Randy Scheunemann, for some reason, would rather insult a NATO ally than admit that John McCain found himself at sea.

Can't anybody play this game? Can't Kessler and O'Keefe tell it straigh? Can't McCain and Scheunemann do foreign policy?

McCain Slights Spanish Prime Minister: Republican presidential nominee John McCain suggested this week that he would continue President Bush's policy of having cool relations with the government of Spain, despite having made starkly contrasting statements to the Spanish press earlier this year saying he looked forward to normalized relations with the NATO ally.... McCain seemed to lump Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in the same category as the anti-American leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba....

McCain has suggested that as president he would seek to repair relations that have been badly frayed in Europe during Bush's tenure. In an early-April interview with a reporter from Spanish newspaper El Pais, McCain said, "This is the moment to leave behind discrepancies with Spain.... I would like for [President Zapatero] to visit the United States. I am very interested not only in normalizing relations with Spain but in obtaining good and productive relations with the goal of addressing many issues and challenges that we have to confront together."

The reporter for the Miami radio station seemed surprised that McCain, after discussing anti-American antagonists in Latin South America, acted so coolly to the idea of meeting with Zapatero.... "I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America."... "I'm talking about the president of Spain," she noted. Given this fourth opportunity to extend an olive branch, McCain stuck to his guns: "I'm willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom and I will stand up to those who are not." That McCain would lump Zapatero in with such Latin American bad guys as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez comes as a surprise....

So, was McCain purposely trying to diss the Spanish leader? Questions about whether McCain forgot which country Zapatero leads, got confused about Spain's geographic relationship to Latin America, or confused Zapatero with the Zapatista rebels from Mexico have exploded on blogs since reports of the interview first surfaced. McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Sheunemann said McCain's answer was intentional.... Asked to explain McCain's apparent shift in tone and position since April, Scheunemann gave almost no ground.

"In this week's interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally," he said in an e-mail. "If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America's adversaries. It's called keeping your options open, unlike Senator Obama, who has publicly committed to meeting some of the world's worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office."...

Yoly Cuello, the reporter who interviewed McCain, said she repeatedly asked McCain about Spain because "he didn't want to answer my question." "I think he was just trying not to answer the question, I think he understood" who Zapatero is and where he's from, Cuello said. She conducted the phone interview on Tuesday when McCain was campaigning in Miami and it aired Wednesday on Union Radio's 74 Spanish-language radio affiliates nationwide and on its stations in Colombia, Mexico and Spain...

Nobody has any business voting for John McCain. Nobody has any business arguing that John McCain is qualified to be president. Nobody.

Comments

[LaDa]

I read this earlier today with great confusion. These are my favorite parts of the discussion (in which she is OBVIOUSLY asking about Spain):

Interviewer: Senator, finally, let's talk about Spain. If you're elected president, would you be willing to invite President Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero to the White House to meet with you?

McCain: I would be willing meet, uh, with those leaders who our friends [sic] and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion, and by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very very tough fight against the drug cartels. I'm glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan.

And also this one....

Interviewer: So you have to wait and see if he's willing to meet with you, or you'll be able to do it in the White House?

MCCAIN: Well again I don't, all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS WRONG WITH THIS MAN?????? Surely he was confused. It almost seems like he doesn't know where Spain is (I know this can't be the case, but why does he say 'the hemisphere?).

Have you ever seen this from the primary debate?? A 0% interest rate?????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqGWTh_NZ-0

[batavicus]

How did Prime Minister Zapatero get promoted to president? Has the monarchy been abolished? Was Juan Carlos deposed?

[The Spanish Prime Minister is really The President of the Government, just as the French Prime Minister is (or was, I forget which) really the President of the Council of Ministers, and the British Prime Minister is really the First Lord of the Treasury...]

[ogmb]

Uh, when Obama was giving his speech in Berlin, the McCain campaign belittled the German and European audience as star-crossed dolts. That certainly didn't go over well either. Pissing off NATO allies is just par for the course for Mc95%BushVotes and his crooks.

[Maximilian]

Same Question?
What?
Spain is a Monarchy!!!
What is next?
Can we have somthing like a test!
Name the most importand leaders of your most important allies plus constitional functions &ct.
By the way Spain is a thriving capitalist economy, no Mr Morales or Cheves there, no nationalisation like A.I.G.!!!
How on earth can anybody confuse them?
(Because their names all sound spanish?)

[Brett Dunbar]

Gordon Brown is Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. He holds three distinct offices. The last time the First Lord of the Treasury wasn't also Prime Minister was 1902, Salisbury was Prime Minister while A J Balfour was First Lord of the Treasury.

[Oskar Shapley]

Who are you going to fool with your elitist logic?

[PaulC]

I just chalk it up to another case of life imitates the Onion. Could McCain actually be more confused than Bush?

The Onion, April 2003: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27961

Bush Subconsciously Sizes Up Spain For Invasion
During a White House meeting with visiting Spanish prime minister and fellow allied-forces leader Jose Maria Aznar, President Bush subconsciously sized up Spain for invasion Monday.
...
Powell recalled that during last month's summit in the Azores, Bush seemed oddly fixated on Spain.

"[Bush] said Spain didn't seem to be all that prosperous for a nation whose main export is oil," Powell said. "I told him Spain doesn't produce a lot of oil. Finally, we figured he must've been thinking of olive oil, and we both had a big laugh about it."

Powell said that upon returning home from the Azores summit, Bush continued to insist that "there is some big oil-producing nation that speaks Spanish."

"I told him he must be thinking of Venezuela," Powell said. "They are very rich in oil. So now he wants a full report on Venezuela by Monday. Ever since this war with Iraq, he's been a real geography buff."

[Maynard Handley]

So I guess meeting with Mao is absolutely out then?
Say what you want about Nixon, but at least he wasn't a complete fscking moron.

[fimbo]

from BBC

US Republican presidential candidate John McCain has raised suspicions in Spain that he thinks the country's prime minister is Latin American.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7624143.stm

[brother, can you spare a trillion?]

"By the way Spain is a thriving capitalist economy."

Ah, no, Spain at least as far as the housing market goes is experiencing a bust worse than ours. If you can remember all the way back to Spring, people died during the gas/diesel shortage riots.

[bigTom]

I becoming concerned that McCain is simply a trojan horse candidate. If elected the plan could be to disqualify him based upon mental degeneration even before he takes office. This may be a nefarious plan to install a cristo-taliban as president, without the electorate being aware until it is too late?

[GA]

President/Prime Minister: weak translation from Spanish. As in French, it should be Chairman (of the cabinet or council of ministers or whatever).

And for convenience, almost always identified in english (and french) as prime minister. So just a bad translation, I think.

(In some countries these may be two separate roles that always coincide)

[ogmb]

Per Wikipedia, unimpeachable and unerring source of all knowledge, the official title for the Prime Minister in Spain is Presidente del Gobierno, President of the Government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Spain

[batavicus]

GA wrote: President/Prime Minister: weak translation from Spanish. As in French, it should be Chairman (of the cabinet or council of ministers or whatever). And for convenience, almost always identified in english (and french) as prime minister. So just a bad translation, I think.

To GA and others: Ok, that makes sense; our problem is the ambiguity across languages of the word president (e.g. the Dutch prime minister in Dutch is "minister-president." Thanks for the help, and I stand corrected.

[GA]

To batavicus et al,

Spanish not my forte, but the languages too close to call: Président in French is literally chairman - the Presider (he who presides). Not to be confused with the Decider.

So President of the Government (the Cabinet) = Chairman of the Cabinet = Chairman of the Council of Ministers = First Minister = Prime Minister = Chairman of the Privy Council = Prime Minister.