alicia:

fuddmain:

alicia:

livejamie:

Please don’t elect this man.

I dunno. Obama said he’s been to 57 states. Is he senile too? Or perhaps they are both just people who misspeak (or aren’t clear exactly what they mean) sometimes.

This went beyond misspeaking.  He was asked a series of questions related to Spain and its Prime Minister and he continually referred to Mexico and South America.  The reporter tried to help and McCain was still befuddled.  What’s particularly bad is the reporter was from the newspaper El Pais, which is a Spanish (as in Spain) newspaper.

I agree it didn’t come off good, but I’m not convinced that one confusing incident constitutes anything. I listened to the audio and could barely understand the reporter because of the heavy accent. (And wasn’t the interview done by cellphone? Thought I read that too.) I would give any politician or person the benefit of the doubt in a circumstance like this - if he really is confused and doesn’t know what he is talking about that will show itself in time.

Alicia, would you please stop being reasonable and making sense:-)

Josh Marshall points out McCain probably didn’t understand the question and tried to wing it.  Not great, but it can be explained and maybe even joked about.

Instead, McCain’s foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, said that McCain did understand the questions.  Josh feels he said this because they’ve staked so much on McCain’s foreign policy cred.  Probably true, but I think they really don’t want the word “confused” to be associated with McCain, given his age.

Anyway, it was a goof that was made worse by the campaign.