Note to the Senator, the Prime Minister of Spain is alright.
According to Spain's El Pais, John McCain would not answer this week whether he would be willing to meet with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. "Would you be willing to meet with the head of our government, Mr. Zapatero?" the questioner asked multiple times. Five months ago, McCain said he would be willing. But in the interview earlier this week, McCain could not offer a coherent and logical response:McCain proceeded to launch into what appeared to be a boilerplate declaration about Mexico and Latin America — but not Spain — pressing the need to stand up to world leaders who want to harm America. "I will meet with those leaders who are our friends and who want to work with us cooperatively," according to one translation. The reporter repeated the question two more times, apparently trying to clarify, but McCain referred again to Latin America.
Finally, the questioner said, "Okay, but I’m talking about Europe - the president of Spain, would you meet with him?" The Senator offered only a slight variance to his initial comment. "I will reunite with any leader that has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty. And I will confront those that don’t [have them]."
Josh Marshall observed that one possibility is that ...
since the questioner "asked about Castro and Chavez," McCain didn’t know who Zapatero was and assumed he "must be some other Latin American bad guy."
Did McCain Just Reject Spain as an Ally?
Posted by Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo
AlterNet
McCain's gaffe on identifying the Prime Minister of Spain.
Well, we've heard the interview now. And John McCain either doesn't know who the Prime Minister of Spain is, thinks Spain is a country in Latin America, or possibly both.
In case, you haven't seen our updates from last night, yesterday John McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. And in the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American leftist leader from South America.
After the interviewer presses him a couple times on the point and tries to focus him on the fact that Prime Minister Zapatero isn't from Mexico and isn't a drug lord either McCain comes back at her saying, "All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."
Then there's a moment of awkward pause before she says. "But what about Europe? I'm talking about the President of Spain."
McCain: "What about me, what?
Interviewer: "Are you willing to meet with him if you're elected president?"
McCain: "I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not."
At this point, the interviewer gets tongue-tied presumably because she can't get over McCain not knowing what Spain is.
UPDATE: The Washington Post has gotten hold of McCain's Spain goof. And McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann has sent the Post an email suggesting that McCain knew exactly who Zapatero was and was simply repeating the neocon anti-Zapatero line.
Now, I was away Tuesday and Thursday, so I still want to come back to whether Scheunemann was working with bamboozler Amir Taheri on his made-up Obama-Iraq piece. So we'll get back to that.
But on this, nice try, Randy. I don't doubt that Scheunemann and his neocon pals still have it in for Zapatero for pulling his troops out of Iraq. I admit it is difficult to believe that McCain either doesn't know who Zapatero is or doesn't know which continent Spain is currently a part of. And we can question the wisdom of a major party presidential candidate suggesting that a major NATO ally might be part of his Axis of Evil -- along with Hugo Chavez. But Randy's attempted save here does not add up. If McCain knew who Zapatero was, why did he repeatedly refer to him as a Latin American leader? Spain is not in Latin America. I'm certain of it.
I mean, maybe McCain did know exactly who he was talking about and just got confused about Spain being a country in Latin America. But I'm not sure that's much better.
Read the transcript or listen to the interview. The most logical explanation of this gaffe is that McCain got asked about Zapatero right after being asked about Chavez, Castro and Morales. Not remembering who Zapatero was, he assumed he must be some other Latin American tinpot dictator and answered the question accordingly. We could be generous and assume he was just upping the ante on the normal neocon line. But by repeatedly referring to Spain as a country in Latin America, McCain just doesn't make that interpretation tenable for any fair-minded reader.
Face it, he got confused.
Late Update: We're getting a flood of good emails interpreting what happened here. The most generous interpretation we're hearing is that McCain couldn't understand what the interviewer was saying -- she's a native Spanish speaker speaking in an accented English, though she says repeatedly she's talking about Spain. Rather than ask her to clarify he decided to wing it, assuming she must be talking about some other Latin American bad guy. I think there's a good chance this is what happened. (I don't think that if you actually walked up to McCain today and asked him whether Spain is in Europe or Latin America that he wouldn't know. But on the fly he did seem to get confused.) But I don't think this puts him in a very good light. And, needless to say, this interpretation is entirely inconsistent with Scheunemann's suggestion that McCain knew exactly who he was talking about and just wanted to stick it to Zapatero. Whether he got confused about who Zapatero was or was too proud to admit he didn't understand the question, he still shot from the hip and insisted that Zapatero, the Prime Minister of a major NATO ally country, is from Latin America. He's not ready for prime time.
Entradas
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario