McCain’s confusion sparks an international incident.

John McCain has stirred up a shitstorm of an international incident by declaring that he wouldn’t meet with the Spanish prime minister, for the same reasons that he wouldn’t meet with leaders of rogue states. If your Spanish isn’t so hot, here’s an auto-translated version, and Josh Marshall’s explanation. It appears that a confused McCain believes that Spain is somewhere in South America.

I forecast that, a la France in 2003, Republicans will immediately declare Spain to be an enemy of the U.S., and scorn Democrats for their continued support of the nation. I’m only half kidding.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

28 replies on “McCain’s confusion sparks an international incident.”

  1. My view, from hearing the tape:

    McCain sounds like he’s responding one of a couple ways:

    1) He has no idea who the guy is, either because he just doesn’t know or he missed the “let’s talk about Spain” part of the transition. With that he really can’t give a definite answer.

    2) He’s unsure about where the interview could be going. We go from Latin America, Bolivia, Chavez, now let’s talk about Spain! McCain could have assumed he was on the defensive, here you’re talking about trouble areas and now you bring up Spain, which makes him cautious and wary of a “gotcha” moment. Does this lady know something he doesn’t? If he says “Yes, we’ll have weekly lunches!”, is he setting himself up for a “well, what about the billions he’s given to Chavez or the baby he ate for dinner last night?” which then puts him in quite a bind that Spanish media, American media, and Liberal bloggers would have held over his head until doomsday. So he gives a patent response “if he’s friendly we’re cool, if he’s bad we’re not” and plays it safe. Which then leaves it open to interpretation. And has the Spanish media, Liberal bloggers, and probably the American media eventually holding it over his head until doomsday.

  2. Jason,

    There’s this whole ‘not knowing’ component that I don’t feel comfortable with. He should know, if he is going to be in that position.

    Since he is the only part of the ticket that has any foreign policy experience at all, if he doesn’t say something, who will?

    Be prepared, be knowledgeable, and certainly a ‘no comment’ or some other artful phrase is better than what has happened here. His lack of preparedness is what bothers me.

    As far as the demon media and bloggers, I think I would respond to the truth being spoken by saying, “What took you so long?”

  3. Jason:

    I respect your charity, but I’m inclined to discount #2. The McCain campaign wouldn’t call me a foreign policy expert by any definition (I can’t see a single foreign country from my house) but even I remember off the top of my head the chilling between Spain and Venezuela that occured when the King of the former country told the Chavez to “shut up” after Chavez railed against a former Spanish Prime Minister as a “fascist.”

    There is absolutely no question which side Spain’s playing on. You’d have to be an idiot to think there’s a “gotcha” moment coming here.

    (here’s the story for other people who can’t see Russia from their front porches, by the way: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7089131.stm)

  4. “uhhhh…. you can put lipstick on a pig…”

    That was a real wise remark, also.

    I’d rather see arguments based on actual voting records than hatchet jobs on the candidates.

  5. Sam – Again, maybe he either missed the part about Spain or was wary of a “gotcha” moment – if not about relations with Latin American then concerning a policy McCain may not have been aware of – so took the easy way out of saying “no comment” while supplying a comment that should cover his tail.

    Mark – And you’re right. If it’s because he has no idea who the PM of Spain is, well, that’s up there with Bush not knowing who the President of Pakistan was in 2000.

    I’m not saying he’s completely clear here, but what I am saying is that there are perfectly reasonable explanations for his reaction that are less offensive than one may want them to be.

  6. Jason, I would be positive that the “didn’t realize we were talking about the elected leader of a NATO member state” is the proper answer. As I said, anyone with even the most casual familiarization with European affairs wouldn’t be afraid to say that they’d be interested and even eager to engage directly with the Spanish government on any number of issues where American interests and Spanish interests intersect, including Venezuela (Spain’s at odds with Chavez), counter-terrorism (Madrid’s still fresh in their minds), and a resurgent Russia (again: NATO ally).

    We’re not talking about meeting with Putin here, where maybe there’d be a question about the nature of our relationships going forward, or Ahmadinejad. This guy’s in the same league with Sarkozy, Brown or Merkel. We have an established diplomatic friendship codified by mutual defense treaties and trade agreements. In no universe was that a tough question that a reasonable human being would have hedged on with a nuanced and evasive response.*

    *Unless he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  7. TPM’s doing a bangup job of this, and I’d suggest anyone interested in unpacking this take a look through their analysis.

    Short version? McCain’s a muddled and confused man, and his campaign is willing to screw with relations between the US and Spain rather than admit that McCain simply tried (and failed) to wing it when he didn’t understand a question.

  8. Isn’t it funny, by the way, how many times a day the “Straight Talk Express” seems to have the “What He Really Meant To Say Caboose” in tow? It used to be that John McCain was capable of thinking and speaking for himself without having an aide come by and interpret it for you (after arrogantly telling you that you’re too stupid to understand what “market fundamentals” or “NATO allies” are so you’d better not think for yourself, as in the insulting tenor contained in the Ambinder column).

  9. It’s clearly a senior moment. The McCain campaign statement saying he knew who was being discussed and simply did not want to commit to scheduling whitehouse calendar during an interview is BS, because if that were so the Senator simple needed to say so with something like: “well I can’t talk specifics of scheduling at this time, but yes, I’ll meet with the president of one of America’s longest allies”

    The scary fact that the campaign is willing to try to paint Spain as part of the axis of evil or some terrorist supporting country rather than face up to an honest senior moment is truly horrifying and sad…

    Heads need to role, and a public apology made by McCain himself; or it’s true – they are completely insane and really think Spain is in the axis of evil now and we write off his campaign and candidacy entirely.

  10. I also like how we DIDN’T label Spain as our evil enemies back when they actually DID have a fascist dictator, but now that they have the most hardcore liberal President in the EU, McCain wants to declare them enemy combatants.

    Then again, it’s not like McCain knows who Franco was either… remember: HE WAS A POW!!!1!!! He can’t be expected to know anything about history or other countries or the economy or the internets! Being a Presidential Nominee is hard work!

  11. No, this could not have been an innocent misunderstanding about Zapatera versus Zapatistas. The interviewer clarified by saying ‘I’m talking about Spain’ and McCain continued acting like he was talking about a dictatorship.

    Why does everybody run from the obvious conclusion every time McCain does something like this again and again and again throughout this campaign? He wasn’t like this back in 2000. John McCain exhibits symptoms of early stages of Alzheimers disease. He is 72 years old and cannot remember how many houses he owns, what kind of car he drives, whether Vladimir Putin is Prime Minister of Russia or President of Germany and now he forgot where Spain is or whether they are a democracy.

    This man is no longer mentally fit to hold any position of responsibility.

  12. Jackson,

    You may be right. There’s a pretty good chance you are. But the interviewer clarifying doesn’t really prove anything. No politician would’ve said “Oh, Spain! Well, I feel differently” after giving such a non-answer. You repeat the non-answer so as to try not to look uninformed. Though obviously in this case, it didn’t really work.

    Not really trying to disagree, I’m just using Occam’s Razor here. I have other reasons to believe he might not be mentally sound (though I remain unconvinced, I think the public deserves McCain’s medical records), but this one doesn’t really provide any evidence to me.

  13. You misunderstand Occam’s Razor. It simply states that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. Here’s how you could apply Occam’s Razor to this situation: the McCain campaign says that McCain understood the question perfectly, but several hundreds of millions of people speaking many different languages misunderstood him. Occam’s Razor would imply that it is more likely that this was an individual error committed by one person–John McCain–rather than an individual error committed simultaneously be several hundred million people across several linguistic barriers. That is the most rigid definition and use of the Razor. Given a choice between the responsibility of a single entity and hundred of millions of entities each acting independently, the single-entity answer is the simplest and most logical.

    You can’t apply the Razor to a single entity in order to justify what makes sense to you. In that case the outcome of the device is driven by the conclusion you already reached rather than being arrived at based on the fact at hands. Either way, you are making exactly the same number of assumptions as anyone else who isn’t involving a third party (“space aliens have abducted John McCain,” “the Devil made him do it.”) The consequence is that you’re using it in name only to justify your conclusion, rather than using it to create a hypothesis that is justifiable.

  14. Sam,

    You completely misunderstand my use of Occam’s Razor. Entities, in the case in which I’m using the razor, can be thought of as the forces at work to produce the observed result. Given the result, I try to find the explanation that uses the fewest unknown forces.

    To me, there is no reason to assume in this instance that McCain has any form of dementia, because the gaffe is easily explained without it as an attempt to save face. If you want to debate that point, that’s fine, but you instead make an unjustified assertion that I’m making the same number of assumptions as someone who believes space aliens have abducted John McCain, which by my count, would involve a number of assumptions about the existence of space aliens, their motivations, and then… some sort of John McCain clone or robot? Try again.

  15. You’re correct that there’s no reason to assume that this happened because McCain has dementia. You’re incorrect that this necessarily supports a specific alternative conclusion that also coincidentally happens to be yours. “Saving face” doesn’t fit the pattern any more efficiently than “misunderstood the interviewer” or “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” or “actually believes what he’s saying.”

    On a side note, I believe you may be misunderstanding the meaning of the word “isn’t,” at least insofar as it’s used in this sentence: “Either way, you are making exactly the same number of assumptions as anyone else who isn’t involving a third party.” I never said your opinion is as valid as ufo conspricy theorists–I actually said the precise opposite.

    At the end of the day, the bottom-line conclusion that logic leads us to is that John McCain was wrong about Spain. The “why” is a matter of conjecture and personal opinion. The “what” is beyond dispute.

  16. OBAMA = BETRAYAL
    Obama supporters are foolish to think that he will never betray them.
    Obama was a close friend of Pastor Wright for TWENTY YEARS.
    Obama threw Wright under the bus for personal ambition.
    McCain would not betray his country even after 5 years of torture.
    You can put lipstick on a traitor, but he’s still a traitor.

  17. Howard,

    What makes Obama a traitor? The fact that he has close friends, or that he had to distance himself after one friend wanted too much of the spotlight for himself?

    Sorry, but I am not seeing where anyone here is a traitor. However, John McCain betrays his country every day, when he lies and spews hate all in a misguided effort to be elected.

    I would appreciate a response, Howard, and not just your regurgitated talking points.

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