Confused old guy doesn't know who we're fighting in Iraq

"And you want to be my latex salesman...."

At the rethug blog powerline, whatshisface pooh-poohs Sen. Foreign Policy Experience's foreign policy boner (italics mine):

'One of today's minor news stories is a kerfuffle over a supposed "gaffe" by John McCain'

-- whereby the senile old dodderer, "traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise," failed several times in identifying just which Iraqi extremists are supposed to be receiving support from Iran.

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

A few moments later, fellow Bush rump swab Joe Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in Mr Foreign Policy Expertise's ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”

The mistake threatened to undermine McCain’s argument that his decades of foreign policy experience make him the natural choice to lead a country at war with terrorists. In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy make him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.

"Al Qaeda is Sunni. Iran is Shiite. That's a pretty big mistake for someone who is supposed to be so steeped in foreign policy and Iraq."

NBC News political director Chuck Todd: "[T]his was not a one-time slip and ... had [Sen. Hillary] Clinton or [Sen. Barack] Obama done something like this, this would have been played on a loop, over and over, and would have absolutely hurt them politically."

Minor kerfuffle. Jackass.

 
Sen. Obama runs with it:

"Now we know what we'll hear from those like John McCain who support open-ended war. They will argue that leaving Iraq is surrender. That we are emboldening the enemy. These are the mistaken and misleading arguments we hear from those who have failed to demonstrate how the war in Iraq has made us safer. Just yesterday, we heard Senator McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda. Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America's enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades."

Above: Sen McCain forgets his onion belt.