I almost entitled this - too cutely, really - "The Manichean Candidate," but that bad pun was already used, perhaps first apropos of Vice President Cheney, who does have a knack for dividing the world into two camps, good and evil. In any case, Cheney is about to ride off into the sunset, forever guarded in his post-VP bunker in fear of subpoenas or depositions or summons from future seekers of justice.
But I digress. Manichaeism lives, in the dualistic dogma propagated by Palin and McCain. Is the latest snafu in strategic communication - McCain's insistent morphing of NATO ally Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero into a liberation movement named after a Mexican revolutionary active a century ago - an example of deliberate messaging or just another example of how scarily out of it Senator McCain is?
Looking at the video (of a radio interview) and helpful on screen transcript provided by Josh Marshall and TPMtv, it's almost possible to feel sorry for the Senator, mixing up Spain and Mexico, Zapatero and Zapatista (that's what Spanish daily El Pais thinks he did, calling it an "affront"). But you're not supposed to feel pity for the man who wants to be President of the United States. At least not as a reason for voting for him, as much as people may honor his wartime suffering. But pitiful is what this exchange shows: the man sounds like a robot getting its lines wrong, repeating, as the brainwashed ex-POWs did in the Manchurian Candidate, "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, most wonderful..."
On the tape, it's McCain's droning on about dealings with various Latin American leaders, while the radio host repeats her question about the Spanish PM, that not only belies the McCain campaign spin, but that shows that the man is truly out of touch. Listen, and hear for yourself.
But it might not matter to his base. Who cares if our hero slips up on some unpronounceable foreign names? What matters is that he's the American Candidate for America... as opposed to that other guy with the unpronounceable foreign name.