John McCain's brother apparently has the same mavericky sense of humor that shows the McCain family is a walking gaffe machine. It remains to be seen what impact this could have on swing voters in the Arlington and Alexandria areas of Virginia, but with Virginia competitive for the first time since 1964 any further bad publicity for Republicans is sure to hurt their chances.
Campaigning at a rally in Loudon County, Virginia, Joe McCain brilliantly made a joke:
"I've lived here for at least 10 years and before that, about every third duty I was in either Arlington or Alexandria, up in communist country," Joe McCain, a Navy veteran, said about his military postings.
The fast-growing Northern suburbs of Virginia are critical to Barack Obama's chances to swing the state and it is incredibly poor judgment to make a joke like that. Arlington, which saw battles in the Revolutionary War and is home to our National Cemetery, should be afforded the respect it deserves. Whether he was referring to its people or just incapable of humor isn't important because of this fact.
Referring to a place near our national's capital that continues to trend Democratic as "communist country" is stupid. I mean, I get it. As a Vietnam veteran and newspaper reporter he knows a thing or two about communist countries, and all those people criticizing that false war that's sending more servicemen and women to their graves in their city...wow, slow down there you Chevistas, maybe they are communists because of the Federal occupation of the city during the Civil War? Damn Yankees, that sounds pretty Stalinist right there.
It's really sad now, Joe just wanted to make his big brother happy and will now be mercilessly beaten by Steve Schmidt.