As our part of our continuing coverage of McCain seemingly thinking that Spain is in Latin America and run by a dictator, I wanted to point out that the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder had a back and forth with the McCain campaign today, trying to get them to explain why, if the campaign now says it would be unwise to rule in or out any future meetings with foreign leaders such as Spain's prime minister, did McCain offer an invitation to just such a meeting to Spanish leader Zapatero just five months ago? Contradiction much? The McCain campaign's response, explaining why the sudden change? Gobbley-gook. Here's their response:
In this week's interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally. If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America's adversaries. It's called keeping youtr options open, unlike Senator Obama who has publically committed to meeting some of the world's worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office.That wasn't the question. The question was why McCain today thinks he shouldn't rule in or out any such meeting, but last April he offered such a meeting to the Spanish leader. If it's called "keeping your options open," then why didn't McCain "keep his options open" last April? And for that matter, why did McCain respond to a question about Spain - four questions about Spain, in fact - by answering with a non sequitur about Mexico and Latin America?
Answer the question, McCain campaign. You were for meeting Zapatero and McCain downright gushed about mending relations with Spain in April, yet today you claim it would be imprudent to be publicly in favor of any such meeting. (And to top it off, McCain seemed to suggest that he wouldn't meet with Zapatero, the leader of Spain, unless and until Spain embraced "democracy and human rights" - what does McCain think, this is the 1970s under Franco? That's crazy talk). So was McCain imprudent back in April when he publicly extended the invitation to such a meeting with Zapatero? Or are you just lying in order to hide what Ambinder calls "a senior moment"?
