The Wheels Are Coming Off The Bus

This isn't good, particularly if you combine it with McCain's consistent Sunni/Shiite gaffes earlier in the year.

Spain, if you recall, was a member of the Coalition of the Willing back when that was the thing to do. They wisely backed out when it became obvious that a) the Spanish people were against the war in Iraq, b) Spain became a major target for terrorists and c) the war in Iraq wasn't going anywhere good.

For this, Spain earned the enmity of W.

Fast forward a few years, and you get John McCain campaigning in the States, saying it was time to put that business with Spain behind us and move forward.

Then this interview (which can be heard via the link provided above) took place.

It's one thing to confuse Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero* with his counterparts in Latin America, some of whom have taken Hugo Chavez' lead and created anti-US stands when talking to their people and the world at large. It's another thing to repeatedly ignore your interviewer's prompting that you may have your leaders mixed up geographically.

It is still yet another thing to not admit that you've made a mistake, and instead claim that you are moving forward with strained relations with a nation that has been an ally in the past.

This is an example of the kind of experienced foreign policy leadership we'd get with this guy, which only figures to improve with stress and age.

*Zapatero is just two syllables away from Zapatista, the Mexican insurgent movement, who take their name from Emiliano Zapata, the anarchist heavily involved in the Mexican Revolution, after all.