McCain Doesn't Know Squat About Iraq

Another huge blunder by the increasingly senile McCain:

So I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it’s succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it’s long and it’s hard and it’s tough and there will be setbacks.

Of course, this is totally out of step with reality. There are currently 155,000 troops in Iraq, whereas pre-surge levels were 130,000. In addition, Mosul had multiple terrorist bombings yesterday, and Al Qaeda is still operating there.

I think it is becoming more obvious with every passing week that McCain is not ready to be president. I've said it many times on this blog, but the guy is too old and out of touch. He should be retired somewhere, playing with his grandkids and great-grandkids. He shouldn't be running for the toughest job on Earth. Maybe 10 years ago McCain was up for it, but not anymore. And of course, it doesn't help that his policies are terrible.

Surprisingly, McCain has refused to apologize for this latest gaffe. His aides say that he simply got the verb tense wrong, and I'll tell you right now that this excuse is gonna become infamous for how lame it is. Does McCain not know the difference between past, present and future? Does he know what the meaning of "is" was? Or what "was" is? His campaign is admitting that he's a moron, just so they don't have to admit that he's an idiot. I'm seriously laughing as I write this.

But McCain has also chided the press for "nitpicking". I'm sure if Barack Obama was off by over 20,000 in the number of troops in Iraq, McCain wouldn't consider it "nitpicking" to point it out. If McCain is really trying to bill himself as the greatest expert ever on Iraq, he needs to get his facts straight. He's been wrong about Iraq from day one, and he still hasn't righted the ship.

Here is the response from Obama surrogate John Kerry:

“It’s very disturbing to have John McCain constantly raise questions about what he knows and what he bases his judgments on,” Kerry said. “If you don’t know the number of troops it’s very difficult to make a judgment on if they are over-extended.” Kerry continued, “It raises serious questions about his comprehension of this challenge.”

The Massachusetts senator also knocked McCain’s quasi-serious offer to go to Iraq with Obama, who has not been there since 2006. Kerry said he would recommend Obama make the trip, but on his own terms. Kerry said McCain’s offer rang hollow and would result only in a “media circus” and considered it a “political stunt.”

The tone of Kerry’s criticism come as somewhat of a surprise considering the two senators had shared previously warm relations, and McCain was one of Kerry’s most high-profile defenders during the “Swiftboat” ad campaign that ran against him in his 2004 presidential bid questioning his war record.

“John McCain is out of step with history and facts,” Kerry said today, calling the Iraq War a mistake. “John McCain defends that mistake, Barack Obama understood from the beginning that it was a mistake,” he said, “By any measure this is a failed foreign policy that not only is John McCain defending, but promising to continue for four more years.”

McCain's list of gaffes and mistatements continues to grow. By November, he's gonna be known as the most gaffe prone, out of touch candidate since, well, George W. Bush.