Bullying, maybe?

Is that the answer to the "3AM phone" question? :)

Media relations.

Maybe once the CNN idiots stop reflexively repeating that "John McCain is known to be an expert on foreign policy," they may notice that his goal is to use any allegations true or false to justify his war intentions on Iran.

His "gaffes" were not about his lack of knowledge about Iraq but about his future PR campaign against Iran.

I shared this idiocy with my loony right wing co-worker. His response, which I imagine is typical of the jingoistic right, was "Al Qaeda, extremists, just fight 'em all."

How can we live in a country where this is reasonable thinking???

Comparing Obama's speech to McCain ignorance over the past few days, I'm not longer just an Obama supporter, I'm openly willing to say that McCain is simply too stupid to be president and that Obama reflects the sort of adult mindset that we need in office right now. Bush and McCain speak to us like we are stupid and simply validate the worldviews and the mindsets of the stupid.

The question is do we want 4-8 more years of nurturing and encouraging people like Aaron's coworker, or do we want a president who expects more out of himself and others?

Media relations.

We have a winner!!!!!!

How can we live in a country where this is reasonable thinking???

Aaron:
Where have you been? This has been reasonable thinking for longer then 7+ years. Look back at Clinton and his zipper problem. Faux Noise is an accepted part of American journalism. Doesn't that give you pause? Sadly, it's an ongoing rot in our public discourse.

Ezra,

Perhaps the reason McCain thinks that Al Qaeda and Iran have long had ties is that, well, they have. I know all the lefty pundits like to claim that Sunni and Shia never cooperate, but that's simplistic, dangerous, and above all false.

The 9/11 commission found it to be otherwise: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,664967,00.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4191-2004Jul21.html

So if you are so concerned with McCain's serious inaccuracies, you might want to google or something to find out that he is right and you are wrong.

this reminded me immediately of that sad, shocking moment years ago, when nancy reagan was whispering information into the ear of ronald reagan during a televised moment.

McCain, actually, was talking about contemporary Iraq and, as he would so boldly point out "Al-Qa'ida-In-Iraq". Has the 9/11 commission issued any claims that Al Qa'ida is crossing the border to train in Iran now? Or should "lefty pundits" just assume it because, you know, "those people" are all one big mess anyway?

"So if you are so concerned with McCain's serious inaccuracies, you might want to google or something to find out that he is right and you are wrong."

Indeed, McCain was so right he corrected himself 5 seconds later.

He is old enough to have mastered the dark arts of the intertubes.

El Cid et al.,

I thought it clear that I was not saying McCain should not have corrected himself about the slip up. Ezra follows MY and myriad others repeating the bigger "frame" (how tiresome all this is) that, gosh, this shows a deep misunderstanding on the part of McCain of the whole relationship between Sunni and Shia.

The answer is, no it doesn't.

Ezra "accuses" McCain of falsely believing that Iran has provided a haven for Al Qaeda, and in fact they have.

Not in the specific instance he's referring to here, but in general. So all this nonsense that we should infer from this gaffe that he doesn't understand Islam or the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda is just that--nonsense.

I thought it clear that I was not saying McCain should not have corrected himself about the slip up.

Actually, no, it wasn't clear, since you said "he is right and you are wrong." McCain said nothing about Shia-Sunni cooperation in general, so when you say he was right that presumably means he was right about the statement in question, that Iran has been assisting al Qaeda in Iraq (which is a different organization than the al Qaeda cited by the 9/11 commission).

But since you have acknowledged he was wrong now, doesn't it stand to reason that he hadn't considered that the Shia-Sunni conflict would make an Iran-AQI alliance unlikely? Any "expert" in our current foreign policy should see an inherent problem with Iran assisting AQI which, while not precluding any possible relationship, should at least lead said expert to examine the question a little further before publicly spouting it off as concrete fact several times. "Several times" being the key words. If this was merely confusion on his part between al Qaeda and al Qaeda in Iraq, that doesn't really speak well of his "expertise" either, does it?

Neither Ezra not Bergmann claimed Shia-Sunni cooperation was impossible, they just pointed out that McCain probably isn't looking at these issues very closely if he unquestioningly believes that Iran would be actively assisting AQI.

Bill,

"I thought it clear that I was not saying McCain should not have corrected himself about the slip up. Ezra follows MY and myriad others repeating the bigger "frame" (how tiresome all this is) that, gosh, this shows a deep misunderstanding on the part of McCain of the whole relationship between Sunni and Shia."

I don't think anyone is worried that McCain misunderstands the relationship between Sunni and Shia. The problem is that the mistake he made implies that he doesn't really understand the DIFFERENCE.

For McCain to think it plausible that Iran help Sunnis would be understandable; for him to think they are doing so when he's presumably been briefed about the Shiites whom they are in fact helping, shows a deeper problem.

Keep in mind that we're talking about a guy who finished 894th out of 899 students in his class at the Naval Academy.

John McCain simply does not have neither the mental capacity needed to handle the presidency.

Has Senator QuislingClinton revised her pronouncement that Senator McCain is qualified to serve as Commander-in-Chief?

An AQI and Iran link -- though not with much strong evidence and not apparently a training one -- has been put forth before:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9cc4d5f4-2be3-11dc-b498-000b5df10621.html

The all powerful Sunni-Shi'ite split is, of course, the reason why Iran has never funded or supported Hamas in any way, right?

Aaron should report his reactionary neighbor to the People's Commissars so that the man can be inducted into a Re-education Camp. After a year or two, he'll have learned to hate all the right people and things and so could be released back into the general population.

ibid,

I think my post opens with the long term ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq to which Ezra referred. I think your reading comprehension is poor, or you are a disingenuous reader.

One to grow on!