Daily Kos

Anniversaries of McCain's Own "I Misspoke" Moments Noted Here

by dmhlt 66

Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 07:54:47 AM PDT

While many of us may have had a bit of schadenfreude over Hillary’s getting caught "misspeaking" about her Tuzla, Bosnia junket in an effort to pad her foreign relations dossier by embellishing it with sniper bullets whizzing overhead, we’d do well to recall McCain’s current anniversaries marking a couple of his own major misspeaking moments beginning a year ago today when he tried to convince the American people that Baghdad’s largest open-air shopping district was "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."

And he would be telling the Gospel truth ... as long as normal outdoor summertime markets in Indiana come fully stocked with more than 100 rifle-ready soldiers in armored Humvees (that’s an entire company), three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships hovering overhead – and let’s not forget bulletproof vests for all those Hoosier customers

So how did local merchants react to McCain’s attempt to portray his congressional delegation’s visit to their shopping area last April 1, 2007 (April Fool's Day ... now there’s an ironic date coincidence if there ever was one) as just a "stroll through the market"?

"What are they talking about?!" Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market exclaimed.

Mr. Faiyad’s incredulity stems from the fact that U.S. soldiers had earlier blocked all traffic from the market area (called a Shorja) and restricted the market’s access to only Americans – as well as posting sniper sharpshooters on the rooftops.  And of course photos document that all the congressmen were heavily guarded and fully outfitted in bulletproof vests throughout their hour-long visit outside the Green Zone.

mccain_baghdadstroll_2

Mr. Faiyad hit the nail right on the head when he added, "This was only for the media."

McCain counted on the MSM letting him get away with another one of his "Big Lies" under the standard IOKIYAR rubric.  But when he was confronted about the veracity of a comment he made on fellow Republican Bill Bennett’s radio program in which he said that he could walk freely through parts of Baghdad outside the Green Zone, McCain sharply replied: "I just came from one."

But someone a little closer to the true facts on the ground, Abu Samer – a Shorja merchant who thankfully doesn’t share the MSM’s love affair of St. McCain (and who can also spot a whopper a mile away) scoffed after being told about Mr. McCain’s "assessment" of the market:

"He is just using this visit for publicity.  He is just using it for himself.  They’ll just take a photo of him at our market and they will just show it in the United States.  He will win in America and we will have nothing."

What’s amazing is that this McCain fabrication came just days on the heels of his being caught in another out-and-out lie.

It was only five days earlier on March 27, 2007 that McCain had chastised CNN’s Wolf Blitzer for not recognizing just how safe the Bush/ McSame McCain surge had now made Baghdad:

McCain: "You know that's where you ought to catch up on things, Wolf.  General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee.  I think you ought to catch up."

But the next day, CNN’s John Roberts rebutted McCain’s assertions, stating, "I checked with General Petraeus’s people overnight and they said he never goes out in anything less than an up-armored Humvee." Roberts added that a new report by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey "said no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat reporter could walk the streets of Baghdad without heavily armed protection."

So what does St. McCain do when faced with overwhelming evidence that he "misspoke"?  He simply pulled another "Pinocchio moment" and denied he’d ever said it:

"Well, I’m not saying they could go without protection. The President goes around America with protection. So, certainly I didn’t say that."

Oh yeah?  Well, click away and watch for yourself as McCain lies right to Wolf Blitzer with that straightface Republicans have mastered.

Are you to the point of hoping that McCain might get some much needed comeuppance and a little pushback from the MSM?  CNN’s Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware, who had lived in Iraq for four years, came through when he reported that military sources greeted McCain’s comments yesterday with "laughter down the line."

Trying to save face, (but failing miserably to hide his now infamous temper) McCain went on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" three weeks after he had returned in an effort to quiet the growing criticism of his preposterous claims to have "strolled" through a Baghdad market with a few of his buddies (well, as long as McCain's "buddy" list includes more than 100 rifle-ready soldiers in armored Humvees, three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships), so you can either watch or you can read the trasnscript of McCain snapping at the host:

MCCAIN, (R-AZ): I had something really picked out for you, too.  It's a nice --
STEWART: Did you really?
MCCAIN: Yes, it's a nice little IED to put under your desk.

[NOTE: Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are the leading cause of death, accounting for at least 1,732 deaths of the now over 4,000 soldiers killed in Iraq.]

There’s an old saying that goes "First time – shame on you; second time – shame on me."  We simply cannot afford to have McCain continuously trying to deceive the American people.

With the anniversaries marking McCain’s dissembling deceits now at hand, I think it’s safe to say that any reasonable and responsible person would NOT want McCain answering ANY phone ANYWHERE in the White House at ANY time ... day or night.  Because we all realize that the Iraq War is most assuredly no April Fool's Day joke.

Tags: John McCain, Lies, Iraq War, Tuzla, Baghdad, Markets, Rescued (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

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