McCan't On Defense

NPR interviews the Republican nominee on Sarah Palin:

NPR: Given what you’ve said Senator, is there an occasion where you could imagine turning to Governor Palin for advice in a foreign policy crisis.

McCAIN: I’ve turned to her advice many times in the past, I can’t imagine turning to Senator Obama or Senator Biden cuz they’ve been wrong, they were wrong about Iraq, wrong about Russia…

NPR: But would you turn to Governor Palin?

McCAIN: I certainly wouldn’t turn to them, and I’ve already turned to Governor Palin particularly on energy issues and I’ve appreciated her background and knowledge on that and many other issues.

NPR: Does her energy qualification extend to the international energy market?

McCAIN: Of course. That’s what it’s all about. It extends to a broad variety of issues from her worldview to threats that we face, to radical Islamic extremism, to specific areas of the world. I’m very proud of her, and proud of the knowledge and background that she has.

Let me get this straight: her energy "qualification" makes her qualified to talk about radical Islamic extremism, to the "threats that we face" on an international level? And McCan't has turned to her for advice on foreign policy matters "many times" in the past? How many times? Under what circumstances specifically? When did he do this -- before he picked her or since? What advice did she give that you didn't already know?

He is defensive, making this shit up out of thin air to justify his horrible pick.

But wait! There's more!

NPR: Now that you're in the middle of this brutal general election campaign, with negative ads going back and forth, how do you balance honor and winning?

McCAIN: By running an honorable campaign. And I was specifically talking in my book [Worth the Fighting For] about the Confederate flag in the state of South Carolina. Overall, I'm very proud of the campaign we ran in 2000. I'm very proud of this campaign. I'm proud of the support we have across the country. I've always put my country first, and that's my record, and I'm very proud to do that.

NPR: Is it a struggle, though, sometimes? It's been a pretty brutal campaign.

McCAIN: No, it's not a struggle. I know what's right. I've been around for a long time. I know what's the right thing to do.

He sounds like the warden of Alcatraz in Murder in the First, so fixated on his own perception of himselfand his "mission," so deeply believing his own bullshit that he is unreachable on a rational level.

Finally, this:

NPR: Have you come back to your advisers at any point and said — for example, the ad that ran with your name on it saying that Barack Obama supported comprehensive sex education for primary school students, something that factcheck.org said was wrong. Have you ever gone to your staff and said, 'Take that ad off. It's not right.'?

McCAIN: It's factually correct. It's absolutely factually correct, and you can go on my website and you can see the exact language of the bill that Senator Obama sponsored. But the point is that if he had agreed to the town hall meetings that I asked him to do all around the country, like Jack Kennedy and Barry Goldwater had once agreed to do, the tenor of this campaign would be dramatically different. If we'd have gone around the country, and stood side-by-side before the American people and listened to their hopes and dreams and aspirations, the whole tenor of this campaign would be dramatically different. I'm proud of the campaign we are running, the ads are factually correct. And if someone named factcheck.org or anybody else doesn't agree with it, I respectfully disagree with their conclusions.

Again, let me see if I understand: the Republican nominee would never have put on these ads, which have been proven factually incorrect by non-partisan fact-checking organizations, if Obama had agreed to do the town-hall meeting format? He's saying he would have been more factually accurate? This is Obama's punishment for refusing to let McCan't set the terms of the debates? His levels of denial and self-delusion are stunning.

Let's see how proud he is after the VP debate, when Obama's lead surges past 10%, and after the last presidential debate, when the Obama leads swells to 15%, and even the McCain advocacy group over at Fox News (except for the ever-idiotic Hannity) believes he's going to lose. Let's see how proud he is after the campaign starts releasing videos of Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers as "friends" of Obama, or videos of his face side-by-side with Ahmedinejad's, ratcheting up white fear of a black/Muslim president. Let's see how proud he is to walk into the Senate chamber after January 20, 2009, still the senior senator from Arizona.