John McCain's Daily Gaffe(s)

Yesterday was a highlight reel of McCain gaffes. Let's go to the tape.

1) Admits oil executives are directing his energy policy:

My friends, we have to drill off shore. We have to do it. It's out there and we can do it. And we can do that. The oil executives say within a couple of years we could be seeing results from it. So why not do it?

A Republican president advised by oil executives tripled gas prices in the last 7 1/2 years. A McCain presidency advised by the same self-interested group could lead to $12/gallon gas. Whee-hoo!

2) Misstates the history of "The Surge"

Watch the entire interview here. [question starts at 3:00 in]

Katie Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?

McCain: I don't know how you respond to something that is as-- such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history.

In fact, as Spencer Ackerman and Ilan Goldenberg have reported, the record firmly establishes the opposite: instead of being caused by the surge, the key signs of the Anbar Awakening occurred not only before that strategy was implemented, but before it was ever conceived.

As a subplot, Katie Couric's pathetic CBS Evening News that conducted the interview, didn't run McCain's actual answer during its broadcast. They edited their piece so McCain's lie was cut out of the answer. (Journalism is dead. Long live the deceitful corporate media.) Here's the CBS edited answer contrasted with the actual answer:



3) McCain accuses Obama of losing the war to win the election. Despicable. Even Joke Line at Time magazine is disgusted with this one.

I had the courage and the judgment to say that I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Sen. Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.