McCain's Fudge House

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So McCain -- understandably, perhaps, given how little attention he's getting these days -- dumped on Obama's speech in Berlin yesterday: "I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering any place outside of the country after I am president of the United States," he said. In other words, presidential candidates should stay at home, in the U.S., where the voters are, and not travel around the world giving speeches (like, to thousands and thousands of Germans).

"However," NBC's Mark Murray reminds us, "on June 20, McCain himself gave a speech in Canada -- to the Economic Club of Canada -- in which he applauded NAFTA's successes... McCain's trip to Canada was paid for by the campaign."

Oops.

Call it envy, call it whatever you want, this was also yet another gaffe from the gaffe-filled McCain. Maybe he really had forgetten about his speech in Toronto, or maybe envy got the better of him, or maybe he was trying to score a political point against Obama's worldly cosmopolitanism, but, whatever the case, he's been making a lot of mistakes recently.

In terms of looking and sounding utterly pathetic, McCain just keeps on outdoing himself.

And the contrast yesterday was stark: Obama in Germany speaking to 200,000 people, McCain speaking to a few reporters outside Schmidt's Fudge Haus (after eating at Schmidt's Sausage Haus) -- I'm not kidding -- "in the Heart of Historic German Village" in Columbus, Ohio (via Cookie Jill and Josh Marshall):