McCain Explains Czechoslovakia Gaffe ... And Explains ... And Explains
As you all know, McCain has repeatedly referred to "Czechoslovakia" in recent days, even though that country hasn't existed since the beginning of the Clinton administration.
Well, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire today, McCain again made the same slip-up. But this time, he caught himself, and proceeded to deliver a rather extensive mea culpa of sorts for his serial mistake. It's worth a watch...
"From time to time some of us misstate and say Czechoslovakia when the fact is it's the Czech Republic," McCain said, with a bit of a giggle. Not to be a bad sport and all, but not all of "us" are running for president on a claim of foreign policy seasoning and superiority. But whatev.
Meanwhile, Politico's Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei round up McCain's multiple gaffes and become the first to openly ask an "uncomfortable" question: "Are the gaffes the result of his age? "
Separately, AmericaBlog's John Aravosis notes a rather less humorous moment from McCain's town hall today.
Comments (46)
I think it's time for someone to come out and question his purported knowledge. It's time for a surrogate to fall on his/her sword and take one for the team and come right out and say:
"For someone who's supposedly got all this knowledge on foreign affairs, he keeps screwing up a lot of basic knowledge. I'd be careful about pushing the idea that John McCain has some deep foreign policy knowledge. He's been around for awhile, but it's pretty shocking how little he really knows."
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
July 22, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The dude is a mile wide and an inch deep. Age might be part of it, but he's never cared enough to really understand the issues.
July 22, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Are the gaffes the result of his age?
Not entirely. He's also not very intelligent.
July 22, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, he is not the sharpest knife in the draw.
Let's see he could not get in the Naval Academy because his HS GPA was too low, so he went to Navy Prep school and earned a 1.5 but in order to receive a commission to the academy you need a 1.7GPA...so everyone who was in McCain's navy Prep class with a 1.5 or above received a commission so they could admit McCain 'the legacy' while still be fair to the rest of the class.
After being admitted with his 1.5GPA to the academy McCain graduated 5th from the bottom.
So, to say he is academically challenged is an understatement.
Most folks would say he is just plain dumb and he would be on the short yellow school bus today or in special ed given his propensity to be defiant and rebel against rules, order and authority.
July 22, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
He wasn't always like this.
I'd point to a vid of him from 2004 showing how sharp and alert he used to be. You can find it in a post I made a few weeks ago: Ageism and McCain's Senescence
July 22, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I never realized how very dumb he really is until this campaign. I thought he was just a bit better than this - and maybe age is having an affect. But he's a very dim bulb. He doesn't bring much at all to the picnic.
I could go on... ;)
July 22, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto. His stupidty has nothing to do with his age. He simply is not that bright.
July 22, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
So what, every so often I still refer to Russia as the Soviet Union.
July 22, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you also claim to be an expert on Foreign Policy?
If so, you would lack credibility too, just like McCain.
July 22, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. We all make gaffes, but someone who claims to be an expert in a subject should be cut less slack.
I am even willing to cut McCain slack on the Czech misstatement. He deserves to be ridiculed and worse for not realizing that the border between Pakistan and Iraq is also called Iran.
July 22, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
True. Some of us exist between the living and the dead, and the same some of us don't know shit.
wink, and a giggle...heee...hee...
Please someone call a hospice, heard a few very good ones are in N.H. It's a no brianer, but again we elected W. twice.
July 22, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Testing...
July 22, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hilarious!
And I'd like to recommend that John McCain giggle more often. Complete and total turn-off, if you ask me.
The folks at Politico better be careful about how they bring up the age issue. I'd hate to see a reasonable discussion shut down because people get all up in arms about ageism...
And Election Central people? I couldn't make comments for awhile--kept getting a "error on page" message....
July 22, 2008 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The folks at Politico better be careful about how they bring up the age issue. I'd hate to see a reasonable discussion shut down because people get all up in arms about ageism...
Agreed, but I still have to congratulate them for bringing it up at all. It needs to be discussed, especially in light of McCain's constant slip-ups, gaffes and mistakes.
July 22, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey ChronoSpark, I don't care if its Iraqistan or
Shiaslovakia, just get off of my lawn. It's old.
July 22, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh... What?
July 22, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's Politico. They probably want substantive discussion to get drowned out by the ageism issue.
July 22, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't believe he's whining about Obama getting much of the coverage- if cameras were focused on him tenth of the time they're focused on Obama, he would be a finished story.
No one does a better job in burning down McCain than McCain himself. McCain. Self-destruction. Fast. Lethal. Effective.
July 22, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't believe he's whining about Obama getting much of the coverage- if cameras were focused on him tenth of the time they're focused on Obama, he would be a finished story.
No one does a better job in burning down McCain than McCain himself. McCain. Self-destruction. Fast. Lethal. Effective.
July 22, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
His harsh rhetoric, tested out last week, about Obama wanting to lose the war to win political points will allow Obama to keep claiming that he is the new Politician and about new politics.
Also I don't think this tone will play well with most independents/centrists.
However this is all a ploy by the McCain camp to raise a shitstorm at home to take the coverage away from Obama abroad. He wants Obama surrogates to flood the airwaves like the GOP did when Wes Clark had the audacity to say being a POW didn't mean you have experience leading men.
He's adopting the Rove suggestion of questioning Obama's patriotism, so it should be a day or two tops before Rev. Wright is thrust back into the spotlight. Probably on the same day as Obama is giving his speech in Germany.
July 22, 2008 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wasn't McCain 5th in his class at the Naval Academy? Oh, that's right. He was 5th from the bottom. But he knows how to win wars because he was crashed several Navy planes and spent time as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese army.
July 22, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would like to meet the other four, they sure must me a sight to watch- no kidding.
July 22, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
894th of 899
But that just shows he's an everyman, whereas Harvard educated Obama is an elitist.
July 22, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sure George Bush went to Yale. But he was a C student."
July 22, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I said, only in this country we have enough people to make a difference who believe the POTUS should be having beer and watching football with us and know as much as we do about Czechoslovakia, the Iraq/Pakistan border, the Shias and the Sunnis and ofcourse the Economy.
If you're smarter than me, you aren't qualified. Low information, lower educated demographic voter has been a blessing for the GOP for years now. One reason why GOP likes to keep'em poor and uninformed.
Let's keep'em dumb enuff they'd vote for us.
July 22, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Video link broken
July 22, 2008 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't think it is broken. I think YouTube took it down already. Probably a lot of the zealots on the right hated the video.
July 22, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, there's a pretty big second mistake in his revision… there's this other country, Slovakia, that is the other half of that whole former Czechoslovakia place. It's quite beautiful. And quite separate from the Czech Republic.
Look, he doesn't deserve *any* slack for this. Maybe his people are to blame for not really getting him to remember these inconvenient "facts" (we know they don't respect those things), but still, this is the man who would be the United States representative to the world! And the Czech Republic is turning into an important strategic ally, especially for the "bomb Iran" people.
Maybe next week he will refer to Zimbabwe as Rhodesia!
July 22, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. I think you are the only other person who knows that what was Czechoslovakia is now two countries.
The Czech Republic [b]and Slovakia. It's not that he repeatedly gets the name wrong, but the he repeatedly shows how little he knows about current geography.
Not a good thing for a presidential candidate.
July 22, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is a video worth watching - http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a81/kos102/2008/Video/?action=view¤t=Baghdadstandingovation2.flv
Looks like they didn't get the Condi Rice memo.
July 22, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
But those are all State Department workers. They're not real Americans. Only liberal Marxists work at the State Department. And liberal elitists work at the CIA. Backward thinking realists work at the Pentagon. The folks at Justice are just a bunch of Ivy League, process oriented lawyers. You know, I'm having a hard time finding a cabinet department that employs "real Americans". Interior, maybe?
July 22, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Commerce seems like a good bet. That can't be a very "librul" department, can it?
July 22, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Greg may have missed McCain's innuendo on this "gaffe". I don't think that McCain meant "us" in the "all of us" sense, but rather the "all of us old enough to remember when it was called Czechoslovakia" meaning of the word. Maybe it's McCain's way of giving a nod to the older folks in the crowd. Not that one would have to be very old to remember it, but maybe more of an acknowledgement to members of the audience who knew other countries by previous names. Just a theory.
July 22, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
You just keep feeding my crush on you, Greg. :)
July 22, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
To put it gently - that one is growing a long beard cause I think it fails Occam's razor. No offense.
I don't think they think that much in the McLame campaign. Seriously.
;)
July 22, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you. I think you are the only other person who knows that what was Czechoslovakia is now two countries.
The Czech Republic [b]and Slovakia. It's not that he repeatedly gets the name wrong, but the he repeatedly shows how little he knows about current geography.
Not a good thing for a presidential candidate.
July 22, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
OT to the max, but - I knew a guy from Slovakia - he worked up in this little town in Colorado where I used to spend summers for 3 summers. He was a really nice guy and his name was Igor. I just treasure having met someone named Igor.
July 22, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
bullshit.
Challenge to YOU popcornM: give an illustration to back up that bullshit statement.
July 22, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
CNN WEATHER ALERT.....
Sunni and mild today in Shiaslovakia.
Surge working along Iraqistan border.
Golf ball size bombs falling on Iran.
Smoking in Persia.
Hotter than the gates of hell in Talibania.
CNN NEWS ALERT....
Ape joke escapes after 20 years in Tucson Zoo.
Tapper suspects smoking Democratic Senator.
CNN Health Alert...
People fatter than Crowley often slowed by condition.
July 22, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
To paraphrase Biden, John can't help but say a noun, a verb, and surge.
July 22, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
well that looked like a fun event
Video of MSNBC Andrea Mitchell disses Military footage
July 22, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmm. That's as may be, but most of "us" never pronounced it "Checklessovakia" even when they were one country. Gag.
July 22, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cannot believe you even posted that dumb video. Those countries over there change their names all the time. I still call many of them by the names I grew up hearing them called by.
This is a DUMB criticism of McCain. If that's all you got, you must be desperate.
July 22, 2008 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should challenge McCain to go to the Czech Republic so that he can witness the progress that has been made there.
July 22, 2008 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
i'm against using ageism (or any kind of prejudice) instead of actual content to dissuade voters...
however, as someone else said somewhere else, obama isn't going to get any blacker in november.
July 22, 2008 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whether it's early Alzheimers, lapses lingui (sp), intelligence deficit, or whatever, it goes again to the phone ringing at 3:00am. God forbid Dimbulb might push the red button to bomb the wrong country--seriously--it could happen. He doesn't know the difference in Iraq or Czech Republic.
Thinking of a suitable VP, Mitt Romney with all his faults is light years superior in intelligence to McCain, and given McCain's temper no VP can be chosen who is assertive or dominant. So that leaves Jay Leno or some other stand up comedian. No offense Jay. Love ya.
July 22, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink