Stupid Statements By Candidates and My Responses, Second Edition: John McCain

1. “[This package] has to have options for loans to failing businesses”

Response: John, what kind of idiot lends money to failing businesses? Oh, right…


2. “Here is … Ahmadinejad, who is now in New York, talking about the extermination of the State of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map,”

Response: This is just a bald-faced lie, and an egregious one at that. The president of Iran is probably a very bad man, but he has never talked about the extermination of the State of Israel. I can only guess that your ridiculous lie has its its origins in the October 2005 speech from which Ahmadinejad was widely misquoted. The media and politicians have continued to blatantly mis-represent him, often claiming that he “calls for the destruction of Israel” and that he “threatened to wipe Israel off the map.”

My friend, the idiom “wipe (something) off the map” does not even exist in the Persian language. Juan Cole and other experts have debunked this lie, yet you and others continue to use it to justify your ridiculous assertion that Iran is a threat to us.

What Ahmadinejad actually did in that speech amounted to predicting that the Israeli government would fall in time. He didn’t threaten the people of Israel; he is talking about regime change.

Why is it, by the way, that you fail to mention that the official position of the Iranian government toward Israel is that of the Arab League: that Israel should exist peacefully alongside a sovereign Palestinian state?

I have no intention of defending this man, but I must defend the truth. It is an embarrassment for the American people that you would make such a ridiculous, belligerent, and ignorant statement. In a presidential debate watched by people all over the world, no less.