Sen. John McCain makes a complete ass of himself again

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

President Barack Obama, along wth former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, were among almost a hundred world leaders and dignitaries from around the globe who paid tribute to Nelson Mandela today in a memorial service in South Africa.

President Obama delivered a moving memorial Read the Transcript (video below the fold) which was well received by South Africans. Obama garners big applause at Mandela memorial.

The conservative media entertainment complex, which has alternatively been trashing Nelson Mandela since his death because Ronaldus Magnus and Dick Cheney once branded him a terrorist, or trashing conservative politicians who offered words of praise for Mandela following his death, or engaging in revisionist history as they are wont to do, had something else they wanted to focus on today: a reception line. Obama greets world leaders. And what, pray tell, got the clowns of conservative media all worked up in feigned outrage?

Obama shook hands with world leaders, including Cuba's President Raul Castro. Oh Noes!

It is one thing for the clowns of conservative media to engage in this kind of childish propagandist behavior to entertain the rubes who listen to them for their daily dose of ignorance, fear mongering, and hatred. it is quite another thing when a senior U.S. senator whom the Sunday morning bobbleheads of the Beltway media would have us believe is a statesman and a very serious person engages in this kind of childish propagandist behavior.

Steve Benen reports that Arizona's angry old man, still embittered by Americans rejecting him for the presidency, once again demonstrated his lack of judgement, character and "statesmanship" by actually saying: 'Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler':

President Obama delivered a rather beautiful tribute this morning to Nelson Mandela at the memorial service for in Johannesburg, where the U.S. president received an extraordinarily warm welcome as one of the world’s most popular leaders. The domestic political chatter has decided the remarks and the reception aren’t terribly important.

What does matter, apparently, is . . . the perfunctory handshakes Obama made with other heads of state on the stage, including Cuba’s Raul Castro.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday compared President Obama’s handshake with Cuban leader Raul Castro to Neville Chamberlain shaking hands with Adolph Hitler.

“It just gives Raul some propaganda to continue to prop up his dictatorial regime,” McCain told PRI’s Todd Zwillich. “Why should you shake hands with someone who is keeping Americans in prison? I mean, what’s the point?

“Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler,” the Arizona lawmaker said, referring to the British prime minister’s handshake with the Nazi leader after Great Britain agreed to Germany’s takeover of the Sudentenland in Czechoslovakia.

In case you’re thinking this is an exaggeration, and even McCain wouldn’t be so reckless as to say something this foolish on the record, there’s an audio clip confirming the accuracy of the quote.

It’s been nearly two whole weeks since congressional Republicans compared the president to Chamberlain, so I guess we were due?

In terms of responding to McCain on the merits, we could explain that Raul Castro isn’t Hitler. And we could note that a polite handshake bears no resemblance to the agreement struck in Munich in 1938. And we could mention that the reflexive reaction from Republicans to play the Hitler card at a moment’s notice became tiresome a long time ago.

But let’s put all of that aside and instead focus on an event from recent memory: in August 2009, McCain traveled to Libya, where he personally visited with Muammar Gadhafi, shook the dictator’s hand, praised him publicly, and even bowed to him, all while discussing delivery of American military equipment to the Libyan regime.

McCain later described Gadhafi as a modern-day Hitler. By his own reasoning, wouldn’t that make McCain … Neville Chamberlain?

It's like Tea-Publicans never heard of Godwin's law:

Godwin's Law states that as an online argument grows longer and more heated, it becomes increasingly likely that somebody will bring up Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. When such an event occurs, the person guilty of invoking Godwin's Law has effectively forfieted the argument.

"Dude, shut up. Nobody cares what you think."

Steve Benen wrote a post last month, the caption of which captures this perfectly: Those for whom it's always 1938.

John McCain has a long history of making incendiary and outrageous comments that are an embarrassment to this state and brings shame upon Arizona. Oliver Cromwell could have been addressing John McCain in his speech to the Rump Parliament in 1653: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

UPDATE: Still a dick. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) doesn't think there's anything wrong with "going Godwin" and shrugs off his statement about President Obama shaking Raul Castro's hand at Nelson Mandela's memorial last week. John McCain 'pleads guilty' after linking Obama to Hitler, still thinks it's hilarious.

By the way, McCain's seatmate, Sen. Jeff Flake, has also shook the hand of Raul Castro, on a trip to Cuba no less. Dan Nowicki of the Arizona Republic reported, McCain denounces recent handshake between Obama, Cuban president:

McCain’s colleague U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., shook Raul Castro’s hand, too, on one of his several trips to Cuba.

“I did,” Flake confirmed to The Arizona Republic last week. “I had a meeting with him.”

Flake, who, like McCain, sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is a libertarian-leaning free-trade advocate who has worked to reform U.S.-Cuba policy since he joined the U.S. House of Representatives in 2001.

He supports ending long-standing U.S. economic sanctions, including prohibitions on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba, and believes the United States can do more to secure the release of jailed American Alan Gross.

Flake said he doesn’t read anything nefarious into last week’s handshake in South Africa, adding that Obama would have caused a bigger incident had he “snubbed” Castro at the event.

“If we never met with those with whom we disagreed, we wouldn’t get very far,” Flake said. “I met Raul, but I never met Fidel.”

That translates into "STFU old man."