News Flash: McCain Plans to Abandon Israel!

by David Safier

Sorry for poaching on your territory, AZ Blue Meanie, but the English teacher in me couldn’t let McCain’s latest retracted gaff slip by without my notice.

McCain said basically (I’ll include the exact quote later) that if we can end our need for mideast oil, we’ll never have to send a soldier there again. Then he “clarified” the statement by saying he was referring to the Gulf War, not Iraq.

Reporters need to listen more carefully. Regardless of the war he was referring to, McCain said the only reason we would ever have a soldier fight in that region is to keep the oil spigots open.

So, Mr. McCain, if we’re energy independent and Iran gets nuclear weapons, we won’t send soldiers, right?

And, Mr. McCain, if any mideast nation attacks Israel, by land or using weapons of mass destruction, that’s Israel’s problem, because we’re energy independent, right?

Read his exact words:

“My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.”

In the Old Testament, there is a story about Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. In the 2008 campaign, McCain sold out Israel for a gallon of biodiesel.

I’m not over-parsing his words, just reading them carefully. If Obama had used McCain’s words, they would be on an endless cable news loop, repeated over and over and over, analyzed and reanalyzed, condemned by everyone who wants to sink Obama’s campaign. But McCain? No problem. He issued a clarification which explains exactly nothing, so everything’s OK. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.