Grandpa McCain appears to be kind of dangerously clueless.

You know, not all the swarthy dark skinned people are the same...

Crooks and Liars » Oops! He Did It Again: McCain Confuses Iran/al Qaeda Link In Speech Marking 5th Anniversary of Iraqi Invasion:

"...For the third time in two days, the Arizona Republican has pushed the definitively false statement that the terrorist group Al-Qaeda was getting assistance from Iran, even though he was publicly ridiculed for the same false assertion on Tuesday.

...Many in the media seem willing to dismiss McCain’s statement that Iran is training Al Qaeda as a simple slip of the tongue. This is wrong. McCain did NOT misspeak. If he had simply made the statement once, he could perhaps expect to be given a pass.

But he didn’t just say Iran was training Al Qaeda once. He said it in his initial statement. He was then asked about it in a follow up question where he repeated it. It is not a simple slip of the tongue if when challenged on the “slip” you then REPEAT IT. [He also repeated it on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show]

That is not a gaffe. That is called believing something that isn’t true. It is called being confused. And being confused about the differences between Shia and Sunni when claiming that you should be elected president of the United States on your foreign policy knowledge and experience, is simply not okay."

Balloon Juice:

"Nobody who pays the faintest attention thinks that Shiite Iran has or wants anything to do with the Sunni radicals in al Qaeda. For one thing bin Laden’s Iraq branch spends more energy slaughtering Shiites than it does attacking us. Sounds like a great program for Shiite Ayatollah Khamenei to promote, doesn’t it? Yeesh. Thinking that the two have some mutually supportive relationship is like proving your baseball knowledge by arguing that the Dolphins should start David Beckham. It makes a person hard to take seriously.

John McCain says crap like this every day. Joe Lieberman corrects him (twice) and McCain keeps saying it anyway. By any reasonable measure McCain’s crayon-book understanding of the mideast ought to be his candidacy’s most prominent weakness, a shameful sore point that he avoids talking about at all costs; his Chalabi if you will. Yet through some weird oversight that hasn’t happened..."

Crooks and Liars » Bill Maher on McCain: “Not Tougher. Dumber.”:

"He is not tougher about the war — he’s dumber about the war. He’s dumb about the war because he thinks by keeping troops in the heart of the Muslim world that’s going to help the war on terror. That’s exactly what started the war on terror. That’s why bin Laden was so angry at the us because we had troops in Saudi Arabia. We pulled them out after 9/11, by the way. Of course, we go right back in and plant them in the heart of the Muslim world and build Pizza Huts. That is why young Muslim men want to come here and blow themselves up and kill us. It is not about what happens in Iraq; we need to get out of Iraq — not build bases there."

Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rules~ McCain’s a warrior who’s dumb about war:

"New Rule: Old soldiers never die, they get young soldiers killed. This week John McCain said for the third time in two days, that Iran, a Shi’ite stronghold was training al Qaeda a militant Sunni organization. That the Hatfields of the Muslim world would be working with the McCoys is so not true even Dick Cheney hasn’t said it. Now the press, which loves McCain because he feeds them BBQ, dismissed this as just one of those senior moments. Not to worry, he’s only going to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. But it’s not just a ‘gaffe,’ it’s what McCain really thinks. And therein lies the paradox of this campaign: McCain’s strength is really his weakness. He’s a warrior who’s dumb about war. Whoever read The Art of War, chapter three of The Art of War says, “Know thy enemy.” And John McCain plainly doesn’t. He thinks the solution is our presence in the Middle East. No, the problem is our presence in the Middle East. That’s why I don’t care if John McCain is better than Bush on global warming or torture or campaign finance, because he’s exactly the same as Bush on the war. They both don’t get the same thing. As long as we’re setting up shop in the heart of the Arab world, we’re not keeping America safer. Bin Laden goes ballistic over cartoons in Danish newspapers, and Goober and Grandpa want to put up a Hooters in Fallujah. They don’t “hate us for our freedom,” they hate us for our fiefdom. Winning the War on Terror comes down to this: what will make us safer from pissed off Arab teenagers who are willing to die? There are a number of good answers to that question, but occupying their land for the next 100 years is not one of them.

Some people look at McCain and see a tough guy who is going to protect us from the “Islamofascists.” I look at him and see a walking Tom Clancy action figure who is going to get us all killed..."