McCain's insane!

Maybe Bush's presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004 were right - perhaps John McCain has gone insane, after all. On Monday, as a guest on Bill Bennett's radio show, he claimed that "[t]here are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today!" Yeah, why don't you go take a stroll, Senator, and let us know how safe it actually is.

The next day, McCain goes on CNN's The Situation Room, where Wolf Blitzer challenged him to defend those statements. McCain replies by telling Blitzer that he "ought to catch up on things... you are giving the old line of three months ago," pointing out that Gen. Petraeus travels in an "unarmed humvee" As live-in-Baghdad CNN reporter Michael Ware points out immediately after Blitzer aired the McCain comment, McCain couldn't be more wrong.

CNN gives McCain one more chance - Wednesday morning, speaking to John Roberts - to correct himself. Instead of admitting he said something that has been proven wrong (see Barry McCaffrey's report, discussed more in a coming post), he claims he never said what he said.

Is he insane... or just stupid? Sen. McCain, you may have been able to pull off such double-talk 100 years ago, when we were only getting our news through newspapers; in the age of on-demand video, the record shows you either LIED or said something that you had no proof of.

John McCain has about as much right to use the phrase "Straight Talk Express" as FOX News has to use "Fair and Balanced" or "We Report, You Decide." A true straight-talker would admit when he is wrong!