McCain's April Fools Day Joke

Related : McCain Lies To Media, Calls Media "Jerks" After Lies Are Exposed

Once upon a time I believed that Arizona Senator John McCain was one of the few decent Republicans in this country. But once upon a time I also used to believe in Unicorns and Care Bears and the power of a good decoder ring.

You know John McCain. He's Mr. Strait Shooter, Mr. Strait Talk Express...

But lately, McCain's shooting and talking is no longer strait, but a little crooked.

When asked what "Plan B" was regarding the troop surge Condoleeza Rice replied "Plan B" was to make "Plan A" work. It seems now that Republicans and war supporters have resorted to "Plan C", lie your freaking ass off.

Last week McCain was ridiculed for saying “There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today,” and "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee."

McCain's ridiculous assertions were obviously false and were quickly and hotly rebutted by CNN's Michael Ware.

“To suggest that there’s any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. I’d love Sen. McCain to tell me where that neighborhood is and he and I can go for a stroll.”

That's right, because there are not even any streets in Baghdad where an Iraqi can walk freely, so you might as well forget about an American doing it.

Ware also stated that “In the hour since Sen. McCain’s said this, I’ve spoken to military sources and there was laughter down the line. I mean, certainly the general travels in a Humvee. There’s multiple Humvee around it, heavily armed.”

McCain looked like an ass, everyone was laughing at him. He sounded like a senile old fool trying to sell us snake-oil with the promise of eternal youth.

So now, to prove just how safe Baghdad really is on April Fools Day (of all days!) McCain went to a Baghdad market accompanied by 100 soldiers, 3 Black hawks and 2 Apache Gunships.

See how safe Baghdad is? You only need some odd 100 soldiers, 3 Black hawks and 2 Apache Gunships to be safe on the streets of Baghdad! Now, if only we had 100 soldiers, 3 Black hawks and 2 Apache Gunships for every Iraqi, imagine how safe Baghdad would be then!!

So, I think it's obvious. Senator McCain went into that Baghdad market with the intention of trying to prove that he had been correct in his assertion that it was safe to walk the streets in Baghdad.

What McCain really proved by his heavily armed visit was how just how unsafe it is in a Baghdad marketplace.

McCain illustrated perfectly just how dangerous the streets of Baghdad are when his intentions were to illustrate the exact opposite.

UPDATE : Think Progress reports that NBC Iraq correspondent Tom Aspell said this of McCain's marketplace visit :

“It looked as though the whole trip had been arranged by someone to get rid of the negative publicity about [McCain’s] remarks in the States earlier in the week.

"It seemed as though he’d come to Baghdad, made a point of going to a market, staging this kind of visit to the market, and it just seemed to backfire.” He remarked that this weekend’s deadly violence in Iraq “made the trip look rather foolish.”