McCain - - Mr. Foreign Policy?

How is it possible that failures and poor judgment can be turned into measures of success and recommendations for future leadership? Has party loyalty blinded voters to the stupidity and intransigence that have brought our country to an economic standstill and advanced foreign policies that weaken us as a nation and increase volatility throughout the world? It's almost as if we have become a parody of ourselves, a satirical take on good government and democratic ideals. Honest debate about how best to serve our interests here and abroad is often lost in a din of incomprehensible partisan rhetoric.

How can McCain suggest, for example, that Barack Obama is to blame for high gas prices? Do the people running things at McCain Central think that just because Obama is out of the country, anything they serve up will be favorably received, when the public is far more likely to be tuning in to videos that convey the excitement and good will the Obama trip is generating abroad? It probably doesn't help either, that while Republicans think it's a splendid idea to keep up a drill, drill, drill mantra, oil man T. Boone Pickens says we can't drill our way out of our energy crisis; he's putting a portion of his considerable wealth into promoting solar projects and other energy alternatives.

But why, in any case, would a campaign management team put out such outrageous foolishness? Senator McCain has been guilty of promoting a series of gimmicks and factually-challenged statements that fail to excite any but the most rabid of his supporters. His gas tax holiday has been exposed for the stunt it is, and even without it, people are driving less, creating a shortfall in the funds the gas tax provides for bridge and highway projects. And while, the McCain people keep belittling Obama for his limited experience, one has to wonder why, after his many years in the Senate, their candidate failed to come up with a viable plan of his own to address our energy concerns.

And why do McCain and his surrogates keep trying to suggest that Obama has been negligent in not holding any meetings of his subcommittee on Afghanistan? As Obama's Foreign Policy Advisor, Wendy Sherman, explained, the subcommittee has been folded into the Foreign Relations Committee with Obama chairing the discussion within that committee - - a session McCain did not attend. And while neither candidate's attendance record has been exemplary, McCain has cast fewer votes than Obama so it is ludicrous for his camp to make this an issue. Is the McCain campaign so disoriented and their candidate so disengaged they aren't aware of these things?

We are told repeatedly that John McCain is Mr. Foreign Policy. He served in the military and he's been in the Senate forever, and those two things should count for something really important, we are told, like being the next president. But, as time goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Senator McCain is not all that well versed in foreign affairs and isn't all that knowledgeable about domestic policy either. How can anyone who served on the Foreign Relations Committee or, even just picks up a newspaper now and then, fail to know that Czechoslovakia doesn't exist as an entity anymore or that Pakistan and Iraq do not share a border?

It's hard to say which is worse - - that he doesn't have a clue about these and many other things or that he just gets confused at times and misspeaks. Whether it's his age or the fact that, as Chris Hayes of The Nation put it, there are lots of people in the Senate who actually are foreign-policy experts, but quite possibly McCain has been credited with an expertise that "just wasn't there." As the campaign rolls along the McCain mystique appears to be more a political invention than a reality. And his age is less the issue than what might be called his old-school thinking. Just saying you are a change candidate doesn't make it so, neither does claiming to be a foreign policy expert.

The American people have a right to expect their president to know more than most of them do about the workings of the world and not take them for fools who will accept half truths and gibberish for policy. As famously noted "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time", but we are at the last stage now when most of the country is saying, enough! "You can't fool all of the people all of the time" and for those who keep trying to do so, your time is up.