Lost on the Iraq-Pakistan Border

"Asked by ABC's Diane Sawyer Monday morning whether the 'the situation in Afghanistan is precarious and urgent,' McCain responded:

"I think it's serious. . . . It's a serious situation, but there's a lot of things we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border," said McCain, R-Ariz., on 'Good Morning America.'"

I agree with Senator McQueeg on one point: it's a serious situation, alright, very serious. It's a very serious situation that McCain is running for President. McCain has now turned his geographical expertise east of modern-day Czechoslovakia to focus on the turmoils in South Asia, or as he calls it, the "Middle East."

First, I'd like to reassure the addled and chronically out-of-it Senator about one thing. There is not now and never will be a situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border. We should be glad about that since McCain would have tried bombing it otherwise.

Anyway, I'm not really writing this for McCain's edification. The reason for that is that McCain doesn't know how to use a computer.

How serious is such a gaffe by one of the two main candidates for President? In the first place, I don't think it should be considered in isolation. Not even George W. Bush thinks there's a border between Iraq and Pakistan, nor thinks that Czechoslovakia exists, nor (now) believes that Sunni insurgents in Iraq would travel to Shiite Iran for training in terrorism. McCain thinks all of these things.

I don't see how a president could possibly have any sort of coherent geopolitical grasp if he's not just conversant, but absolutely grounded, in these basic details. It would be like hiring a chemist who was not familiar with the periodic table or a physicist who doesn't know what "force" is.

It makes you wonder whether the Republican Party might be kidding by running this guy. Is it some sort of unprecedented, bigger-than-life, meta-joke? Is the GOP slyly asking Americans, having fallen for the gags with Reagan and the two Bushes, how about this one?