McCain on Iraq War:“I’m Running Out of Funny Lines”

Presidential wannabe John McCain took Bush’s his economic “plan” to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) on Tuesday. McCain wanted to talk about out-of-control government spending, but it just seemed that something was missing. . . .

What could it be, what could it be? A big government boondoggle sucking billions upon billions out of the American economy. . . oh, yeah, that would be Iraq.

McSame didn’t want to talk about his support for Bush’s war and occupation, but enquiring minds in the audience at NFIB wanted to know: when was Johnny Mac going get the US out of Iraq?

Some might call it heckling, I suppose, but McCain just wasn’t getting to the heart of the matter. The Arizona Senator was interrupted repeatedly by protestors wanting him to speak about the occupation.

“I’m tempted to use my favorite line from President Reagan, ‘There you go again,’” McCain said with his characteristically creepy forced laugh.

Yeah, OK, John. Not sure what that has to do with anything exactly. Were you expecting Iraq to just get lost in a summer of rising unemployment and soaring gas prices? Yeah, oh, well, um, talk about being caught between Iraq and a hard place.

Does this “devil or the deep blue” problem that he has while running on Bush’s record bother McCain? Just maybe. After being interrupted yet again by questions about the Iraq war, McCain, exasperated, declared, “I’m running out of funny lines.”

Watch it:




Again, just to get this, uh, you know, straight—John McCain’s final answer after being repeatedly challenged on his support for Bush’s Iraq fiasco was, “I’m running out of funny lines.”

So, I’m wondering, John, what’s so funny? Is it the 4,094 dead US troops? Or is it the 30,333 that have come home wounded?

Maybe it’s the 90,000 - 1.2 million dead Iraqi civilians. Or the 2.2 million Iraqis displaced by your beloved war.

Or perhaps you are laughing about the thousands of suicides among Iraq war veterans—or the thousands more to come. Or maybe you just can’t help but smile when you think about the 320,000 brain injuries or the estimated 300,000 now suffering with PTSD or major depression.

Or might it just be the trillions of dollars that you won’t have to spend on the things that could help Americans in this time of economic desperation—because you helped squander all that money in Iraq—that’s gotta get a guy like you whose “never run a small, struggling enterprise” all giggly, right?

Maybe, but nothing could be more wrong. The Bush-Cheney-McCain Iraq war is not a cheap laugh for a septuagenarian’s presidential campaign; it’s an expensive disaster that has scarred a generation.

Memo to John McCain: You’re not running out of funny lines. When it comes to Iraq, there are no funny lines. There never were.


(cross-posted on guy2k, Daily Kos, and The Seminal)