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No Mas
NO MAS....Conventional wisdom said it was just a minor gaffe. Or maybe John McCain didn't hear the question right during his radio interview with WSUA 1260 in Miami yesterday. But no: it turns out that, as a matter of policy, McCain refuses to commit to meeting with the prime minister of Spain if he's elected president. (Yes, that Spain. The one in Europe. Liberal democracy. NATO ally. Etc.) McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Sheunemann provided confirmation:
"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and [identified] him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail.
Okey dokey. President Bush already has a policy of keeping Zapatero in the deep freeze, and I guess McCain has decided not to deviate from it. Full details on this bizarre incident at the link.
Maybe McCain thought the interviewer was asking about Zapatistas.
Or this could be another way to temper expectations for the debate.
Or, alternatively, as a commenter at MattY's place posited, perhaps he still has childhood memories of the Spanish-American war, and those old grudges die hard.
So if at any future time he forgets someone's name, that country must go into the deep freeze, because it could not be the case that he merely forgot the name.
Taking the non-admission of error to a whole new level: compounding the error a thousand times--alienating an ally while confusing the world.
Now THAT'S mental confusion and stonewalling we can believe in, my friends.
I think at this point, barring a walk back from the McCain campaign, we should take this as McCain's real position. He's refusing to commit to meeting with a NATO ally because he's not sure of that ally's democratic bona fides.
Which is, BTW, totally insane.
We now return you to our regularly unscheduled economic meltdown.
McCain did not know who the interviewer was talking about, despite what his advisor says. That is clear from the interview.
By the way links to your site from other blogs are not updated; I know there is nothing you can do about this but I thought I would mention it.
I think Hilzoy has it right: McCain got confused, but he's too proud to admit it, so he'd rather damage relations with an important NATO ally that admit to a senior moment.
I find this very odd.
If you listen to the audio, the interviewer really is speaking in fairly heavily accented English (duh, she's a native Spanish speaker). She's talking kind of fast, and the first time she mentions Zapatero she uses his whole 20-ish syllable name. If he didn't quite catch the "Spain" thrown in there, it's easy to see where he'd be thrown off.
While she does later clearly say Spain, she clarifies she's talking about Europe, but with the YOO very heavily stressed. Clearly McCain hears it as "you" and not "you-rup."
So I think it's obvious that he just didn't realize that the conversation had switched continents, and I don't think it's totally unreasonable for him to have gotten a little lost. Now, he should have pressed for clarification instead of blustering his way through it. But I think it's plain as day that he wasn't trying to diss the Spahish PM; he had no idea that's who he was talking about.
So why the hell is the campaign pushing this line? It's utterly false, creates a terribly policy, and makes it more likely the story will continue. He shoulda just said "the senator misheard the question, of course he will meet with Zapatero." Boom, controversy over.
But instead of admitting to a mildly embarassing misunderstanding, he goes all-in.
This guy scares me...
"So why the hell is the campaign pushing this line? It's utterly false, creates a terribly policy, and makes it more likely the story will continue. He shoulda just said "the senator misheard the question, of course he will meet with Zapatero." Boom, controversy over."
Maybe Randy Sheunemann has a contract with Zapatero's right wing political opponents?
This is a very telling event. McCain's people just as Bush's cannot admit a mistake. Someone once remarked about a politician, "he would tell a lie even when the truth was more advantageous" or something like that.
President McCain will lie with impunity because the voters told him it was all right.
So if Iranian Sunnis from Czechoslovakia invade Spain will we all be Spaniards or not?
Why does foreign policy expert Sheunemann refer to the Prime Minister of Spain as "President Zapatero"?
.
Per Ben Smith, in June McCain said the opposite, that he would invite Zapatero to the White House.
It's frightening that McCain would allow his campaign to advocate a totally reckless foreign policy position just to cover a gaffe.
We're supposed to believe it's serious leadership to suggest we'll meet with China, but not Spain? Because, apparently, we need to stand up to Spain, as they have less commitment to freedom and human rights than China does?
This isn't country first.
So I guess Spain's out of the League of Democracies now? Man are they gonna be bummed.
Seriously, can the week get any worse for McCain? Yesterday Obama said the McCain campaign is like an SNL skit. They seem determined to prove him correct.
As part of the pressure to have more of McCain's medical records released, media should ask for results of a hearing test. Body language points to the fact that McCain has a hearing problem and is too vain to admit it by wearing a hearing aid. (Would be evidence that he REALLY is OLD.) Faulty hearing, among other things, shows up in his confusion in answering questions. Media should check this out.
Maybe someone should ask the McCain campaign about all world leaders. Which will he meet with? Whom does he refuse to meet with?
And if McCain is going to be this bitchy, what's the point of Iran negotiating with the United States?
Yeah, I really don't get this either. From listening to the interview, it's clear that McCain didn't get what the reporter was asking about (and it wasn't even really a "senior moment" - she has a moderately thick accent, and was speaking quickly over the phone).
Why does the campaign feel it would be more damaging to admit that the questions were misheard than to insult a NATO ally?
As it's been made perfectly clear previously, talking is for appeasers.
Real men bomb.
You know, Muslims controlled Spain 600 years ago.
Why does foreign policy expert Sheunemann refer to the Prime Minister of Spain as "President Zapatero"?
Ah, I'm glad you asked that question, as the answer is quite interesting. You see, in GOP-speak, "expert" means "ignorant buffoon."
McCain, however, did say he was more than willing to meet with Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
Or is Franco still officially dead?
Speaking of McCain's medical records....
McCain allowed reporters to look at his records without copying or recording them for a few hours.
Why would he open his records this way?
Here's the most likely explanation I could think of: he purged the records of the more damaging stuff. This would be hard to detect without spending much more time to go over the records.
If McCain isn't playing some sort of game with his medical records (they're quite extensive) then why do things this way?
Has Bush met with Zapatero? McCain may just be continuing Bush's policy for Bush's third term.
actually, considering mccain's legendary temper, this is a good thing.
So, does this mean no bear DNA
money for Spain?
Greg wrote: "Why does the campaign feel it would be more damaging to admit that the questions were misheard than to insult a NATO ally?"
I suspect it is because McCain's campaign handlers know that McCain's cognitive functions are a lot farther gone than anyone realizes, and that they have their work cut out to keep his sad and shocking condition hidden from the media, the voters, and the Democrats until the election.
So they see it as absolutely essential to immediately squelch anything that might lead people -- especially the media -- to start pursuing that line of thought.
In this case, yes, they would rather embrace some loony-tunes right-wing extremist position towards Spain than to acknowledge that McCain very often doesn't understand what people around him are saying; that he doesn't know what he himself is saying, or has recently said; that he obstinately refuses to recognize his own condition; and that his stubborn denial leads him to become irritable and belligerent when he feels himself starting to lose his grip.
I read somewhere that he's actually referred to as "President Zapatero" for some technical, arcane reason. Lots more Google hits for that title than Prime Minister.
Remember the Maine!
McCain's cognitive functions are a lot farther gone than anyone realizes
If this is so it should show up during debates. As I recall, McCain didn't seem impaired while debating the other goopers in the primaries. Of course in those he was only one of an ensemble, the others weren't all that much intellectual competition, and the topic areas were wingnut-friendly. It'll be interesting to see how things go with Obama.
Wait, so we're friends with France and enemies with Spain now? Never mind, Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia.
Given his excellent spanish, Bush would think Zapatero referred to his shoe.
I read somewhere that he's actually referred to as "President Zapatero" for some technical, arcane reason. Lots more Google hits for that title than Prime Minister.
Well I think the "technical arcane" reason is...language. I've seen in a few places that the title is "el Presidente de..." whatever the Cabinet is called.
So it seems that's officially his title, but his function in the Spanish parliamentary democracy is Prime Minister.
Or so it seems...
I think Hilzoy has it right: McCain got confused, but he's too proud to admit it, so he'd rather damage relations with an important NATO ally that admit to a senior moment.
That's right. And why not? It's only pooping on another ally in sterling GOP tradition, whereas this cognitive dysfunction story might have legs. No contest for these bastards.
What's funny about this mess is that ordinarily professional diplomats would walk a leader back from an answer insulting to the leader of a friendly nation by claiming the leader didn't understand the question due to a heavy accent or mistranslation. Here we have a foreign policy "expert" claiming the insult was intended to cover up an obvious misunderstanding. Those neocons are such scamps.
The real question is, if Venezuela invades Spain, does that mean war?
If Johnny can't handle this Zapatero (Shoemaker?) fellow, how can he handle the evil doers, to say nothing about Putin?
Johnny Walnuts just doesn't want Meghan &/or Bridget getting any ideas that it would be ok to go to a foam party in Ibiza, do e, freak nasty, & get pregnant. So, better to alienate an ally & keep the home free of bastards.
What puzzles me here is that McCain best bud Phil Gramm is lobbying his heart out for the TransTexas Corridor, which will be largely installed by a Spanish contractor, including the import of huge amounts of exotic-weed and -insect laden Sapnish topsoil, all at a cost of billions of dollars; the deal is being financed by UBS, where Phil sits on the board as Wendy used to hang out at Enron board meetings. So why is Phil letting McCain tweak the Spanish government? Seems to me McCain needs to help his buddy out with this immensely-profitable deal by being nice. Or maybe it all doesn't matter, since the forces of unrestrained private enterprise and Texas governor Rick Perry are salivating over the prospect of cutting this state in half with an environmentally-damaging swath akin to Sherman's march to the sea.
Hey, libs, you've got to remember: We're Amuricans -- no one tells us what to do! (Particularly a bunch of paella-eating Spanish equivalent of the term "surrender monkeys.")
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Not every project is award winning, if it solves the problem for the client it was successful.