- unless you want to LOSE!
Don't ask me how, but somehow John McCain found out that DemocraticLuntz was looking for people to round out his team for this year's Netroots Nation Pub Quiz.
At last year's YearlyKos convention in Chicago, I had the astonishing good fortune to have been placed on a team with such luminaries as clonecone, Scout Finch, LithiumCola, taylormattd and our illustrious team leader, DemocraticLuntz. I expect that Luntz chose me - or rather, agreed reluctantly to have me - solely to fill the "old balding guy" quota on the team. My contributions were limited to several seriously furrowed brows, the occasional belated dawning of realization, one or two smacks to the forehead, and, if memory serves, an enthusiastically offered but ultimately completely incorrect answer to a question about Millard Fillmore.
So after Luntz posted this comment in a thread the other day -
The Sniping Ilk will murk[sic] you all. But I need new (8+ / 0-)
members this year.
LithiumCola, occams hatchet and taylormattd will all be there (those three and the Maven, if he's there, are required to be on the team).
But we're losing clonecone (won't attend) and presumably Scout Finch (will be on the elitist front-page team this year; though I'd hope she'd continue with the Sniping Ilk anyway).
- the following e-mail mysteriously showed up in my Inbox:
Senator McCain wishes to offer his services as a member of the Sniping Ilk at this year's Pub Quiz.
I knew immediately that either (a) this was a prank; (b) or someone from McCain's staff was reading DailyKos. I knew it wasn't McCain himself, because (a) unlike Bob Dole, he hasn't started referring to himself as if he weren't in the room, and (b) mainly because when it comes to the Intert00bz, John McCain hasn't gotten on himself yet.
So I fired back:
Uhh - thanks, but no thanks. If this is a prankster, you wear your makeup like a trollop. And if this is legitimate, to have John McCain on my team in a battle of wits would be to go into battle naked, bent over and unarmed - which, I can assure you, is highly overrated.
I felt justified slinging that first ad hominem because I myself am getting a little thin up there, as my wife likes to playfully remind me. I felt justified slinging the second one because - well, because John McCain is - let's just say it - a dumbf**k. Plus, let's be honest: I didn't like the idea of McCain horning in on my uncontested claim to Dumbest Guy In The Room.
Unfazed, McCain's campaign sent this:
Senator McCain wishes me to forward you the following response:
You are making a mistake, my friend. My five years in a Hanoi prison cell make me the best-qualified person you will ever meet to play in your "Pub Quiz." Having been shot down over Vietnam, I know better than anyone who the president of Germany is. We live in a dangerous world, my friend - which you would know if you had spent five years as a prisoner of war after having been shot down while serving your country as a Navy pilot over Vietnam.
My response:
Sir, the Pub Quiz is not a conflict to be taken lightly. Regardless of how many planes one has lost, or how many confessions one has signed, if one is not one hundred percent on their game when Adam B's questions start firing - well, sir, there will be casualties. And sir, being only able to guess what a traumatic experience it was for you the first time, I would hate to see you shot down again.
With all due respect, senator, your mental acuity when it comes to affairs of government is somewhat lacking. In fact, when it comes to affairs of any sort, your memory doesn't seem to be what it should be.
Thank you for your kind offer, but I must respectfully decline.
A hint of desperation crept into McCain's correspondence:
No one knows more about foreign policy than I do! I was there when Russia tried to annex the Sudetenland! And in case you didn't know it, I was a POW in Vietnam for five years after my plane was shot down over Vietnam, where I served as a Navy pilot before I was shot down. Who better than a Vietnam shot-down-and-taken-prisoner vet to answer questions about internal strife in Mesopotamia and Persia??Ask me who the grand vizier of Rhodesia is! I can name all the members of the League of Nations Security Council! Did I mention I was a POW in Vietnam for five years?
I was exasperated:
Here: according to you, you should know the answer to this one (it's not even political!):
Who was on the 1967 Steelers' defensive line?
McCain (via his Internet-savvy surrogate) harrrummphed:
Look, my friend, it was an honest mistake. Of course I know the defensive line for the 1967 Steelers. It was Yogi Berra, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell and Jesse Owens, right? Oh, and James L. Sullivan and Jim Thorpe!
Maybe I don't remember things as well as I used to, but they've got this new Internet thing now, and I'm going to get on myself real soon.
That was it. I snapped:
Okay, John, look: I wasn't going to say this, but obviously it has to be said: You are dumber than a sack of hammers. You're dumber than paint. You're as dumb as a post. On top of that, you have the emotional stability of a four-year-old. I wouldn't want to be close to you if you got an answer wrong in the Pub Quiz. I wouldn't want to be responsible for the safety of everyone else in the room.
Please don't try showing up at the Pub Quiz. That pub ain't gonna be big enough for the two of us - it can't hold that much Dumb.
Note to those attending NN:
Keep John McCain away from the Pub Quiz. He doesn't like being reminded that he's wrong every time he opens his mouth.
I, on the other hand, am happily married - so I am perfectly OK with that.
See you in Austin! w00t!