McCain's 100 Year Blunder

If all goes according to plan, John "Living in Yesterday" McCain will continue to rely upon the media to carry his fraud water for him, despite their ever-growing irrelevancy. And so he'll keep saying whatever the hell he wants to say and keep getting called on it by the people who really count: American voters. And now that the netroots is reaching a state of maturity in its ability to communicate truth, McCain is screwed.

This ad from the DNC is so great that I'll post it again here:


And wow, what a good ad. This is how it's done. Forget about any of that hypocritical talk from the media elite complaining about Obama's "bitter" remark; this is the kind of thing that will sink McCain. The media might be filled with superficial dopes who can only care about trivia; but it's obvious their influence on the average voter is quite minimal.

When Even Context Hurts

And of course, the ad is so powerful because it's true. And even the wingnut protestations can't save McCain from it. Because it has the appearance of being really bad, using McCain's own words to sink him. And then when they insist on context, the context sinks McCain too.

And here's the deal, I'm sure that McCain doesn't actually like this war. Same with the wingnuts supporting him. If this war could just vanish from history without repercussion, they'd be fine with that. They support it because they have to; not because they want to. While this was once a vote-winner for conservatives, this has definitely turned into a turd they're wearing around their necks. They might pretend they're wearing the turd with pride, but that's all part of the game.

So McCain has to say these things. And I'm sure there was no real thought put into his "100 years" line. It was just toughguy talk made necessary because of the confrontational nature of the guy asking him the question (though it was only confrontational because the guy asked a question McCain wouldn't like). He wasn't giving a thoughtful response he'd want to defend; he was just giving a knee-jerk response to one-up the guy asking a question.

Because the problem for McCain is: What DID he mean exactly? And for as much as his buddies in the media insist that he didn't mean full-on war for 100 years, what did he mean? Because what if 100 years passes and things are just as bad as they are now? What then? If things don't improve, do we pull out in 10 years? 50 years? When? What exactly is his stance on this? And there isn't one. Again, this wasn't a thought-out position by him. He was just trying to sound tough. But now, he either needs to give us some sort of timeline by which he thinks we'd need to leave if things don't improve, or he has to admit that he'd be willing to keep us there forever.

And that's why this is doom for McCain: The war is a giant turd that's stinking the place up. And either he can accept the literal interpretation of his line, which is that he wants us there for 100 years no matter what happens. Or he can waste all his time trying to explain the context, which still requires him to explain what he'll do if the war doesn't improve. And either way it looks bad for him. But more likely, he'll imagine that he can just keep throwing BBQ's for the media and they'll keep ignoring all his blunders like this, and he won't address it at all. But the rest of us won't forget it and it'll just keep hurting McCain.

And so it's a lose-lose for McCain. He has a bad habit of shooting from the hip and it's totally going to sink him. As things are, he's been aided by the distraction Obama has had with Hillary, but once that's gone, McCain's toast. And again, this isn't some side issue or nuanced position taken out of context. McCain says a lot of dumb things and they're not going away. At least Bush had the "Idiot Cowboy" image to ride on, which somehow made his imbecilic remarks work to his advantage; but McCain's sales pitch is based upon intelligence and experience. And the more people see that his reputation for his is undeserved, the worse he will do.