Humor According to John McCain

Iran, John McCain’s favorite playing field. After having sung “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” to a tune by the Beach Boys last April, the Republican American presidential candidate has again gone back to his little joke. Asked Tuesday about the strong increase in the exportation of American cigarettes to Iran, he declared: “Maybe that’s a way of killing them.”

In the United States, humor as a campaign tactic still needs to prove itself. John McCain gave it a good try. Without much success. The Republican candidate made his latest joke this Tuesday. Asked about the record increase in the exportation of American cigarettes to Iran in the past few years, the Arizona senator replied, “Maybe that’s a way of killing them.” His remark was followed by a big burst of laughter from the candidate and the journalists surrounding him. But John McCain didn’t forget that he was campaigning, and that in this context, every little sentence is scrutinized, analyzed and repeated by the opposing camp. So he immediately clarified that it was a “joke,” and insisted, “a joke on the part of someone who has not smoked a cigarette in 28 or 29 years.

A joke in poor taste, some will say. And all the more so given that Iran, whose relations with the United States are tense because of the nuclear question, had already been the butt of McCain’s humor. Asked last April about a hypothetical American attack on Iran, the senator had sung this response, to the tune of Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys: “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.” Chuckling in the room. Another joke, according to his campaign spokesman, Matt David, who had stated that, the question having been posed in a joking tone, the senator had deliberately replied with levity. A few days later, John McCain claimed “to hate war.”

“Al-Qaïda is spreading in Iran”

Humor or false notes? The question deserves to be asked because the candidate who likes to present himself as a foreign policy ace and his experience as his principal advantage over his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, is not always a diplomat. A joker, the Arizona senator is also a blunderer. Asked last March in Amman about the situation in Iran, he replied, “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and they are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” Difficult, however, to imagine Shiite Iran training members of the Islamic Sunni network of al-Qaeda. At his side, Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman hastened to make him aware of his mistake. “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda. Not al-Qaeda, I’m sorry,” the Arizona senator quickly declared. And he added the following evening on NBC: “to think that I would have some lack of knowledge about Sunni and Shia after my eighth visit and my deep involvement in this issue is a bit ludicrous.’’

However, John McCain slipped again. At the testimony of General Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, before the Senate Armed Services Committee last April, the senator again confused these two currents of Islam. In one question to General Petraeus, John McCain made reference to al-Qaeda as a Shiite organization. At each slip, the other side rejoices. “We heard Senator McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iraq and al-Qaeda. Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no al-Qaeda ties,” Barack Obama declared after John McCain’s comments in Jordan. An opposing party that had already exploited an old clip from February 17, 2007, in which the Republican candidate refers to “President Putin of Germany”!

It’s become a habit that, in response to John McCain’s reproaches of his lack of foreign policy experience, Barack Obama stresses the floundering, the contradictions, even, of the Republican in that area. However, the Democrat is not exempt from these either. Last week, he made a verbal gaffe about Iraq. It remains to be seen what the electorate will think. According to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, McCain leads with 51% of voters to 43% on the question of foreign policy. And, the Republican candidate can be reassured, confusing Sunnis and Shiites doesn’t keep people from being elected President.