McCain's Baghdad misadventure

There's more fallout today from John McCain's walkabout in a Baghdad market district over the weekend. Hoping to showcase his conviction that life in Baghdad is getting better and better(securer and securer?) in this period of the American troop "surge," McCain went for a stroll, chatting with stall-owners and passersby. The only difficulty with the picture he was trying to paint for the TV viewers was that he was accompanied by over l00 American soldiers and attack helicopters hovering overhead. You can go for a stroll in Baghdad, sure, but you'd better take some heavy bodyguards with you. The American press took this appearance vs. reality discrepancy and ran with it. Some people are even calling this McCain's "Dukakis" moment, recalling Mike Dukakis's awkward appearance in a tank to prove his military bona fides back in the day.

Now the Baghdad merchants McCain weigh on on the purported "normalcy" of the scene he was trying to create for the cameras...turns out they'd never seen the kind of security laid on for the occasion.

I think the "straight talker" is pretty close to being finished as a potential Presidential candidate, a maverick, even a serious person. it's cringe-inducing, really.