Rachel Maddow Smacks Down John McCain, ‘You need to know what you’re talking about’

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:41 am

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Rachel Maddow smacked down the defacto foreign policy leader of the Republican Party, Republican Senator John McCain, for being both wrong and incompetent on foreign policy.

After playing a Chris Hayes montage of McCain getting it wrong repeatedly entitled “Arm the Rebels”, Maddow delivered the final blow, “(E)ven if you’re just the opposition, you need to know what you’re talking about. You need to have a basic level of competence. And doing what John McCain says is not a reasonable substitution for basic competence on this subject.”

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Noting that the Republican Party still hasn’t admitted they got Iraq wrong, and that they ran Mitt Romney who has zero foreign policy experience, Rachel Maddow sees Republicans as allowing McCain to be their voice for foreign policy. This is a problem for the country since he is so often completely wrong on the subject.

Maddow ended her dedication to McCain’s incompetence with this brutal smack down, “There is a basic level of interest and competence required even of the opposition party on the subject, even if the country has decided they don’t want to put you back in the White House, not after what George W Bush did with it. Even if you’re just in congress, even if you’re just the opposition, you need to know what you’re talking about. You need to have a basic level of competence. And doing what John McCain says is not a reasonable substitution for basic competence on this subject.”

Rachel Maddow is not impressed with John McCain’s media-created foreign policy gravitas. John McCain is almost never right, but the Republican Party seems to have lost all interest in foreign policy after Bush. Neither Romney nor Ryan had an ounce of foreign policy experience. So into this vacuum steps the angry senator from Arizona, best known for “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” and other less than nuanced statements.

What is McCain doing with the power vacuum? Nothing useful or good.

McCain was calling for a Watergate like investigation over Benghazi that he could lead, but that got shot down since his accusations were based on McCain logic (also known as being wrong).

Now, McCain is showing his “foreign policy” power by stomping his feet and declaring that until he gets answers from Susan Rice, he will not only refuse to confirm her, but he will refuse to confirm any Secretary of State. In other words, since he didn’t get his committee, he’ll leave America without a Secretary of State.

Never mind that Rice was only repeating what the intelligence community approved as talking points on the Benghazi attacks, McCain wants her to go on TV and say she was “wrong.”

Luckily no one is taking McCain too seriously, as even Joe Lieberman has abandoned McCain on his Benghazi jihad. As McCain makes the media rounds to hold Rice’s feet to the fire over properly repeating talking points that were kept vague for national security purposes, it’s worth remembering that he has a record of being mostly wrong and clearly incompetent on this very issue.

Only a fool would suggest that we compromise our ongoing investigation by showing our hand to the terrorists before we knew who they were.

Sarah Jones

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