McCain: Maybe Cigarettes Will Kill the Iranians

[sabra]

Source: ABC News

ABC News' Bret Hovell Reports: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., made an off the cuff joke Tuesday about cigarettes killing Iranians.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was asked about the number of exports going to Iran, specifically the increase in cigarette exports.

McCain looked surprised at that fact and in a line somewhat reminiscent of his "bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran" comment last year said, "Maybe that's a way of killing them." Then he followed it up quickly noting that it was a joke.

...

The senator's humor has gotten him into some trouble before. Last April he jokingly sang "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of The Beach Boys classic "Barbara Ann" song. That "bomb Iran" moment became a sensation on YouTube and Democrats used the video to knock McCain's temperament.

Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/mccain-maybe-ci.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. And the voters in the red states will be immune from lung cancer, you

xenophonic, Persian-hating bigot?

[WriteDown]

2. won't vote for him

but actually found this kind of funny. not sure why.

[endarkenment]

3. probably because you have grown up with Iranian Hate

as acceptable and officially encouraged?

[Demit]

6. You found it funny? That's sick.

Are you sure you really belong on this forum? Your posts are strange.

[noonwitch]

14. Because it is funny. Inappropriate, perhaps, but still funny.

Even funnier that a strict muslim nation, that forbids alcohol, is importing more and more tobacco.

[tchunter]

17. also Iran has huge problems with herion and opiate abuse

highest per capita abuse rates i had previously read.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. Only funny if you accept the precept that Iran is an enemy nation

rather than a nation that we have some disagreements with.

We are not at war with Iran. We are not TRYING to kill them.

[noonwitch]

25. Lighten up, Francis

We may not be at war with Iran, but their government is not exactly on friendly terms with us, either. They did hold a bunch of our diplomats hostage for a while, back in the 70s, and they do threaten to wipe one of our allies off the planet on a regular basis.

It's even funnier because it's McCain saying it.

[RaleighNCDUer]

26. IOW, you believe the propaganda.

I guess that's your right, to choose to be misinformed.

[noonwitch]

38. Who's propaganda? I remember the 70s and 80s quite well.

I don't need anyone's propaganda, on the right or the left, because I can think for myself.

[RaleighNCDUer]

39. You remember the Embassy takeover?

Nobody died. And Bushco used it to seize the government.

Maybe you remember the Iranian terrorists who blew up the airliner over Scotland. Only, it turned out to be Libyans.

When has there been ANY terrorist attack on the US that could be traced back to Iran?

We've been fed the "Iranian enemy" meme for so long that it is embedded in our culture - no matter how untrue it actually is.

BTW, the word is "whose" not "who's".

[noonwitch]

42. Whatever the Shah may have been, our president gave him refuge here

And the Iranians responded by taking our diplomats hostage. They wanted Carter to give up the Shah so they could kill him for his crimes. At least under the Shah, the women were not subjected to Shariah law!

Watch Persapolis. It's a very good movie about the effects of the Iranian revolution on a little girl growing up there. The acts of a dictator do not justify the acts of the revolutionaries.

I supported Carter-he showed mercy to a dying man seeking medical treatment.

[ronnie624]

51. Actually,

it is far more likely that the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Iran was in response to its being used as a base of operations for the CIA. The Iranians were simply eliminating a strategic advantage held by the United States, the government of which had been intervening in Iranian affairs for decades. It was a perfectly logical thing to do. It is likely that most of the "diplomats" who were taken hostage were involved in a covert war against the Iranian government. Doubtless they were aware of the inherent risks of such activity.

[Ignis]

28. Did they stop teaching History in schools?

Do you have any idea WHY those pesky Persians might hate the US?

If not, I suggest a refresher course on the history of US interference in regional ME politics in the '70s and '80s. You may have heard of a guy we put in power named "Saddam" something in Iraq, for starters...

[Judi Lynn]

29. Too many people around who resemble the pResident in having no intellectual curiosity,

who don't harbor any deep seated need to know about anything, whose opinions are important even though utterly without foundation.

Really drags down a conversation, doesn't it?

[bullwinkle428]

32. Kind of like when I was listening to some Minnesotans being interviewed

by an NPR reporter talking about the Senate race there, and one woman in particular was asked what her objections to Al Franken were. She had absolutely no specifics whatsoever; she just said it was "a gut feeling...couldn't put my finger on it"! :banghead:

[Judi Lynn]

33. Oh, my god! Ouch. We've had some visitors to D.U. who have said the same thing,

when pinned down for reasons for their opinions.

Sad, sad, sad.

[Ignis]

35. Screw that "Reality" nonsense -- I jus' got a feelin'!

Stephen Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner becomes more prescient every single day.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879

[fascisthunter]

44. Republican Plant... they said the same about Kerry

[noonwitch]

37. When I was in high school, what you call history was current events

I clearly remember the iranians holding our diplomats hostage for several months because they wanted our democrat president (Carter) to turn over a dying man (the deposed Shah) to them so they could execute him publicly and brutally.


It was on the news every night. Any attempt to say that the iranians were heroic in this matter is revisionist history.

[Ignis]

40. Turning on the TeeVee doesn't give you the WHY, only the WHAT.

And not understanding the WHY leads to ridiculous oversimplifications of political events to the point where the Shah is nothing more than "a dying man."

For cross-reference, please research a certain Mr. Pinochet and the various attempts to hold him accountable for his actions. Perhaps because he was "a sick man" those attempts should have been abandoned?

---

Any attempt to say that the iranians were heroic in this matter is revisionist history.

Ooh, someone did that? Please quote it for us, so we can play Dogpile!

I haven't seen it so far upthread...but perhaps you have a Magic Islamo-Fascist Detector Monocle that will do the job?

:shrug:

[GeniusLib]

43. You are just as off base

Those "pesky Persians" don't hate the US

In fact American culture is very popular among the young in Iran.

It is just the fascist mullah's and their nutjob puppet who wish this country harm. They are our enemy not the people of Iran, which is why an attack on Iran would be catastrophic.

[Ignis]

45. Wry wit isn't a grain liquor.

My last boss was a Persian woman who escaped the Revolution (after being jailed and tortured). Having spoken at length with her, her family, and other Persian immigrants over the last decade, I'm quite familiar with the disparity in anti-US sentiment between the hoi polloi and the religious/Revolutionary elements in Persian society.

But to claim that it is "just" the Iranian clerics who hate America is disingenuous at best.

Anti-US sentiment has become part and parcel of post-Revolutionary Iran, thanks to prodigious purges of university, cultural, and religious leaders who dare to buck that party line. Just because the "Death to Amrikka" flag-burnings are staged by the Revolutionary militias doesn't mean that the sentiment isn't widely echoed by the populace. And to be fair, the US hasn't given your average Iranian any great reason to love it in recent decades.

The tone of the anti-US rhetoric has dramatically improved over the past decade--which is pretty amazing considering how much sabre-rattling Shrub & Friends have done--but it's still enforced via peer pressure and in (many) religious settings. While it's hardly North Korea, Iran doesn't enjoy the level of political freedoms that you're attributing to it.

For more humanistic viewpoint on the topic, I suggest the book Reading Lolita in Tehran.

[Kool Kitty]

52. I think we also installed that hated Shah.

Didn't we?

[WriteDown]

31. At least the Iranians and I are starting to have more in common

I do love a good smoke now and then . :evilgrin:

[benh57]

41. Yep. If Leno made this joke, no controversy

It IS funny, when coming from the right person. Jay Leno, Colbert, Letterman all could have made the exact same joke, and everyone here (including those who are 'offended') would have laughed.

But, it's not appropriate for the president or presidential candidate to say something like this.

Hopefully this will also hurt McCain in NC / tobacco country..

[Crowman1979]

4. Maybe arrogance will kill his campaign!

And with the way things are going, he'll probably make Nixon look like a Saint.

[bemildred]

5. This reminds me of the stage in a software project when it dawns on the

managers and lead staff that the software is NEVER going to meet it's requirements or pass any acceptance test, and wild ideas about whom to blame and the cause of the failure start to be bandied about.

[guyton]

7. ban tobacco exports?

Perhaps it's a bit of a reminder that just maybe ... we really shouldn't be exporting tobacco products!

Anyone else think this is just an ugly business and a lousy thing to be pushing on our neighbors?

[dysfunctional press]

15. why would we want to destroy one of our few remaining industries with strong exports..?

besides, cigarette smoking can help stunt runaway population growth.

[Dr.Phool]

8. Everyone should mail McLame a pack of Camels.

Hint, hint.

[Auggie]

9. Not reported by abc -- his wife jabbed him in the back

Political Play: Wife pokes McCain in the back

Cindy McCain's jab to her husband's back came a second too late Tuesday to keep him from making a wisecrack about the health impact of Iran's main import from the United States: cigarettes.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked about an Associated Press report that $158 million in cigarettes have been shipped to Iran during George W. Bush's presidency despite restrictions on U.S. exports to that country.

"Maybe that's a way of killing them," McCain told reporters, smiling as he waited for a cheesesteak sandwich at the Primanti Brothers restaurant. His wife, sitting next to him at the counter, poked his back without looking up.

link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/07/08/politics/p170855D79.DTL&hw=McCain+Iran+cigarettes&sn=002&sc=178

[spinbaby]

12. He had a cheesesteak at Primanti's?

I'm surprised he lived through it.

[heliarc]

21. video?

I'd love to see video of that.

[Auggie]

36. I just have the print link

No time today to search for video

[DesertRat]

10. He expresses his desire to kill Iranians every chance he gets

:eyes:

[kentauros]

11. Someone really needs to introduce him to the beauty of Iranian/Persian

art and architecture. Specifically Mahmoud Farshchian for art and their 7000+ years' history of architecture (slideshare and google image-search.) Maybe then he'd understand that killing them is a bad idea. I don't see how anyone exposed to the absolutely beautiful art of Farshchian could even ponder attacking Iran. How many of their treasures would the world lose to "collateral damage"? How many of their artists would be wiped out? Yes, I'm also concerned for the people that would lose their lives; their culture and history is worth preserving, too.

[raccoon]

13. I didn't think the US could have a presidential candidate stupider than W. I was wrong. nt

[livetohike]

16. Childish, immature, Jr. High School comments from a

Presidential candidate. It's ridiculous and not at all funny. How do the Republicans come up with these idiots? Good insight into how John McCain thinks about the "dangerous world".

[KamaAina]

19. Get him his own standup routine on Comedy Central

hell, with Carlin gone, why not HBO?

Call it "John McCain: I Absolutely Killed Out There!"

[heliarc]

20. What an Jerk.

As if our beef with Iran had anything to do with wiping out civilian populations through disease and drug addiction. This sounds like a guy who can't tell the difference between a nation's policy and its people.

There's a special plane in the inferno for those who take pleasure in this kind of hateful and disgusting remark.

[ryanmuegge]

22. Remember how crazy the media went over Obama's Pakistan flap?

Yeah. I doubt we'll see that kind of reaction here.

[devilgrrl]

23. That may take awhile John, they haven't killed Cheney, W, Laura or Bill Bennett yet.

:smoke:

[LynnTheDem]

24. KILL those pregnant Iranian women! KILL those Iranian infants!!!

KILL all children who may happen to be Iranian!!!

KILL EVERYONE for demockracy!1! USA! USA1 USA!

Jesus would!!1!

[TNOE]

27. Yes, because they are not human beings

just shows McStupid's callousness.

[Judi Lynn]

30. This guy is even creepier than Bush, if possible. Repulsive. Sleazy.

Too bad he's too set in his ways to develope a smoking habit.

[sakabatou]

34. Soooo...

We should use poison or drugs to kill nations?

[David Zephyr]

46. K&R. How in the hell is this not a major news story?

K&R. To the top!

[undeterred]

47. What an idiot.

[minnesota_liberal]

48. RepubliCon gaffes are funny - Anything by Dems is fair game

That's the only way I can explain how McCain's stupid comment and Cheney's recent one about incest in West Virginia got so little publicity while Al Franken's decades-old jokes and writings are getting plenty of coverage.

[MisterP]

49. I thought cigarettes were harmless and acceptable

and only PC pansies and closet Stalinists complain about smoke and burn down the Constitution to prevent it: some tobacco-funded hacks told me so!
Johmmy mustn't have gotten the blastfax

[nomorenomore08]

50. Not very smart for a Republican candidate to imply that tobacco = death.

McCain just managed to kill two birds with one stone - repeating the "bomb bomb Iran" fiasco, AND potentially pissing off a major contributor to his party (the tobacco industry).

[librechik]

53. har dee har har! And who are we killing with cigarettes in THIS country?

Everybody...