The American Spectator

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Politico: McCain's a Senile Geezer

By Robert Stacy McCain on 7.22.08 @ 9:41AM

That's the essence of Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei's story:

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said "Iraq" when he apparently meant "Afghanistan" on Monday, adding to a string of mixed-up word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition.
Just in the past three weeks, McCain has also mistaken "Somalia" for "Sudan," and even football's Green Bay Packers for the Pittsburgh Steelers. . . . McCain will turn 72 the day after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) accepts his party's nomination for president, calling new attention to the sensitive issue of McCain's advanced age, three days before the start of his own convention. . . . But McCain's mistakes raise a serious, if uncomfortable question: Are the gaffes the result of his age? And what could that mean in the Oval Office?

Notice the canny use of media ventriloquism, whereby Allen and VandeHei project their own spin, as if it were an objective fact that such slips of the tongue "raise a serious ... question" about McCain's presidential capacity.

topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Iraq, NATO