Have you ever had that annoying experience of getting a song stuck in your head? It doesn't even have to be a good song or an appropriate time. Like bubble gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, when the pop song meme gets stuck in your consciousness you can find yourself sitting in church with the lyrics to a Marvin Gaye song running through your head.
Now, imagine that the song hijacking your brain chose to take over in the midst of a campaign stop. This happened yesterday to John McCain.
Speaking at Murrells Inlet VFW Hall in South Carolina, McCain was asked when he thought that the US Military might "send an air mail message to Tehran." "McCain began his answer by changing the words to a popular Beach Boys song," the Georgetown Times reports. "'Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran,' he sang to the tune of Barbara Ann," the paper notes.
This is just sad. It's been a rough month for McCain. He has been transformed from an American Icon we all were proud of to someone who looks more like that American Idol contestant with funny hair for whom everyone is embarrassed.
Bush's approval ratings have tanked, in part, because his response to a widespread call for troop withdrawal was a troop surge. McCain, inexplicably showing disdain for popular approval in the midst of an election, chose to criticize Bush for not adding enough troops.
His attempt to convince the American people that Iraqi markets are as safe as the Mall of America backfired spectacularly. Wandering through an Iraqi market surrounded by 100 heavily armed troops, three tanks, two helicopters, three French reporters, two turtle doves, and body parts in armor, he looked as oblivious to his own words as a deaf man involuntarily signing in the midst of a grand mal seizure.
And now, the week of America's worst shooting massacre, McCain blithely suggests the mass murder of Iranians. The obituaries for McCain’s campaign for the presidency will likely date to this, the 12th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. McCain's political suicide is a different kind of tragedy, but a tragedy nonetheless.
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I was unable to find the video of McCain's performance on YouTube, but here's one place you can view it.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
Jeez, the guy was just makin a joke Ron. I, for one, laughed out loud!
ReplyDeletePolitical suicide? perhaps. Sadly it seems we've reached that point.
Joke?! He's got this much clout and we've already invaded two Middle Eastern countries and are talking tough to Iran and this is a joke? Chris Rock making fun of white people or Don Imus making fun of black people - that's a joke. If a man able to influence the dropping of bombs onto civilians, a man who already made it happen it just a few years ago in Iraq, chanting "bomb Iran" is making a joke than WWF is actually a sport. He may have tried to make a joke, but it bombed. Big time.
ReplyDeleteThe next president will almost certainly have to negotiate with Iran in order to bring stability to the Middle East, and in that context it was a remarkably stupid thing for McCain to say.
ReplyDeleteImagine how it would play in this country if President Ahmadinejad joked, "We should create an atomic bomb and drop it on America. Ha ha!"
I don't know what happened to McCain. He just can't keep his foot out of his mouth these days. I guess that's one side effect of making George W. his mentor.
Thomas,
ReplyDeleteI'm so ashamed. It looks like I'm the one in error here. McCain has told critics of his joke to "get a life."
So there you go. What he said could not have been offensive because he didn't think it was. But of course.
Call it like ya see it boys, but I laughed out loud on that one. If he was serious about it, I'd have a problem with it. Last thing we need to do is get into another war.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, if Ahmadinejad told a similar joke about America, and it was one that was actually funny and he said it, like McCain, with a large smile and the crowd laughed too...I'd give Ahmadinejad some personality credit! In fact, if he was JOKING about it, I would consider that MUCH better than if he kept silent on the matter.
I think y'all suffer from taking life and politics a bit too seriously?
Our next president is gonna be one heck of a stick in the mud...
I don't know, Damon. A lot of people would probably find me fairly irreverent and too easily amused by things that I should take seriously. Even so, I have yet to hear any good jokes about the little kids mangled in the Oklahoma City bombing. I guess my imagination is simply too vivid to see much humor in the idea of dropping bombs on people. (Wait, I take that back. Randy Newman's brilliant bit of satire in Political Science would stand as the exception to that. But it is, of course, making fun of people who see bombing as a solution.)
ReplyDeleteSign me,
Humor impaired
Ron,
ReplyDeleteWas that just a subtle way of saying you think I'm demented for finding humor in McCain's beach boy's remix?
I like to think I just try to find humor in everything, good or bad. :)
*tongue sticking out*
"I like to think I just try to find humor in everything, good or bad. :)"
ReplyDeleteThere are going to be days when your wife wont' be particularly happy about that.
Wow.
ReplyDeleteYou said the "W" word.
He might not be optimistic about our country, but he sure has an undue level of optimism for me!
Damon,
ReplyDeleteof course I'm optimistic for you. The country, too, actually. It's one of the reasons that I get so incensed about the politicians who market fear. Sometimes I feel like the politicians are all about telling us to put on our seat belts but clueless about where to drive.
I'm actually betting that my grandkids will live in an extraordinary time.