McCain stumbles again

That smell is John McCain's presidential campaign crashing and burning.

First there was "I'm not sure what I think, but I'm certain I agree with the president."

Now there's McCain on Iraq, in which he says something dumb and then, when confronted with reality, backtracks.

Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told CNN that that President Bush’s escalation in Iraq is going so well, “General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee.” On Monday, he told radio host Bill Bennett that there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.”

The bit about Baghdad being safe was simply fatuous. But even his claim about Gen. Petraeus is wrong; the good general doesn't go anywhere except in an armored Humvee.

Some Democratic partisans have suggested McCain has endangered Petraeus' life by tipping off insurgents to his vulnerability. The lack of such vulnerability aside, the argument is silly. Anyone setting out to kill Gen. Petraeus would certainly figure out what kind of vehicle he drives.

But McCain was simply wrong. And foolish. And then he made it worse by attempting to deny he had said it.

McCain really isn't to be taken seriously; he's been wrong and alarmist and weak-spined on so many things over the last couple of years that he's going to get tied in knots. If Republicans nominate him they'll essentially be ceding the presidency to whomever the Democrats put up.

McCain, politics, midtopia