Serious Man

John McCain's little joke, and more to the point the response to it, has made him righteously angry!

The Arizona Republican was asked for his reaction to any negative response to the joke when he arrived in Las Vegas for a fundraiser Thursday night.

“Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends,” he told reporters. “My response is, Lighten up and get a life.”

When reporters asked if the joke was insensitive, McCain said, “Insensitive to what? The Iranians?”

The Iranians? They're just human scum! Words like "bomb Iran" from an American political leader should never make them nervous! Right?

Here's the double standard made manifest.

...that if an Iranian leader with great visibility--say, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad--had been videotaped singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb America," (which, yes, sounds foolish but you get the idea) it wouldn't be taken lightly here. Fox News would treat it as a sign that the regime was unstable and dangerous and, voila, we'd allow it to bring us a step closer to war.

I don't know what the reaction to the McCain video has been in Iran. But since they're the weaker nation, if their reaction is anything other than passive acceptance of our dear senator's foolishness, then our reaction to their reaction will determine whether this becomes a big deal or not.

I predicted that this would turn into a campaign ad and MoveOn has already done it. People who want to be President don't get to treat foreign policy crises like Iran by making jokes about raining bombs on them. Or at least, they should be exposed as not being serious.