Monday, March 31, 2008

If He Only Had a Heart

Cranky, rusty, and metallic.

No it's not John McCain silly, it's the Wizard of Oz's Tin Man. He was down and out, but thankfully he had a friend to oil his joints and lighten his spirits. Just as the Tin Man had Dorothy, J-tron has Joe Lieberman.

We all know about the little SunniShiiteIranAlQaedaIraq mix-up from last week and how Joe Lieberman whispered sweet nothings into McCain's ear, reminding him about the basic tenets of Islam and who's entrenched in the war he plans to spend the next 100 years fighting. Whatever, we all make [giant foreign policy] mistakes, I just hope McCain sent Joey some flowers for saving his ass yet again.

I say again because, as this week's Newsweek points out, Lieberman has been oiling the Tin Man's joints for quite some time: "In a small meeting at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, McCain was conferring with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Germany—one of America's most important allies—when the others heard McCain erupt. He thought the German was being insufficiently tough on the brutal regime in Belarus. Raising his voice at Steinmeier—who's known for speaking in unclear diplomatese—McCain "started shaking and rising out of his chair," said one participant, a former senior diplomatic official who related the anecdote on condition of anonymity. "He said something like: 'I haven't come to Munich to hear this kind of crap'." McCain's old pal Joe Lieberman jumped in. "Lieberman, who reads him very well, put his hand on McCain's arm and said gently, 'John, I think there's been a problem in the translation.' Of course Lieberman doesn't speak German and there hadn't been any problem in the translation … It was just John's explosive temper."

Yikes, maybe I have it all wrong. Perhaps, McCain has more in common with the Scarecrow than the Tin Man.

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