Incredible! The Straight Talker is Almost as Intelligent as Our Beloved Leader

Or: Hohoho! What a Kidder! Can't You Take a Joke?!

Senator John McCain has issued an apology of sorts for his remarks after visiting a Baghdad market last weekend, saying he misspoke when he declared that his ability to walk freely around the marketplace was a sign of a significant improvement in security in Iraq.

He led a Congressional delegation through the Shorja market under tight security, with 100 heavily armed American troops guarding the group and attack helicopters and snipers watching over them. Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, and another member of the delegation, Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, said the conditions showed that the decision to deploy more than 20,000 additional American forces to Iraq was having the intended effect.

Baghdad residents expressed astonishment at Mr. McCain’s rosy remarks, saying that he visited the marketplace, the scene of numerous deadly bombings, under unrealistic conditions. Democrats and antiwar bloggers ridiculed him for blindly supporting the administration’s so-called surge policy.

Mr. McCain, in an interview to be broadcast on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday, acknowledged that his critics were right. “Of course I am going to misspeak and I’ve done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future. I regret that when I divert attention to something I said from my message, but you know, that’s just life.”

Link. (Link to photo.)

Josh notes the follow-up; retaliation for being an American schmuck's photo-op:

Earlier today I posted this clip from the Times of London that reported that "21 Shia market workers [from the market John McCain visited the day before] were ambushed, bound and shot dead."

Now, we know that people get killed in Iraq every day. And there are inter-sectarian murders for various retaliatory, symbolic or terroristic reasons. But 21 workers from this same market attacked, bound and shot in what sound like execution style killings? Right after McCain was there the day before in a walkaround to demonstrate the success of the surge?

This hadn't occurred to me until I saw this email from TPM Reader KT who wrote. "Do we know whether the ambushed market workers were the ones who had done business with McCain's group, and therefore with the US military? I really hope not."

I don't know if claims of collaboration would have to be the issue. It could be as simple as sending a counter-message.

Before going any further, let me say clearly that I don't know anything about this particular market. How big it is. Whether things like this happen there routinely or whether this incident stands out in a particular way. More local knowledge could quickly show these two events are totally unrelated. But if the Times report is accurate, I think this bears more scrutiny.

Link.