McCain Mixups

At first, I wasn't going to point out some of the errors and mistakes that McCain has said during his campaigning, but there have been too many for me to ignore it. Most of these items are things that you learn in a ninth grade social studies class, if not earlier. Here is a list of some of the errors.

-McCain has referred to Czechoslovakia in speeches and interviews repeatedly, despite the fact that in 1993 Czechoslovakia split into two separate countries - the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

-This week on Good Morning America, McCain spoke of the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border. As most of you are aware, Iraq does not share a border with Pakistan. McCain likely meant to say Afghanistan, but it shows a pattern of errors. Also of note, in that interview, McCain mischaracterized a past Obama statement, by saying that Obama would invade Pakistan. In 2007, Obama stated, "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act, we will."

-McCain has also mixed up Sunni and Shiite Muslims. On several occasions, he spoke of Iran, a predominately Shiite country, training and supplying al-Qaeda, a mostly Sunni militant group. During a news conference in Jordan, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman had to interrupt McCain to correct his statement.

-In an interview with Katie Couric of CBS news, McCain referred to Iraq as, "...the first major conflict since 9/11...", neglecting the fact that the war in Afghanistan was and is the first major conflict since 9-11. Also of note, CBS edited the interview and did not show McCain on the news program making the misstatement.

-In the same interview with Katie Couric, CBS news also omitted another misstatement by McCain. CBS edited McCain's response, splicing two portions together and removing the false statement. McCain stated that the surge started the Anbar Awakening, which was the Sunni revolt against Al-Qaida in Iraq’s Anbar province. However, the Anbar Awakening occurred in 2006, prior to President Bush announcing in January 2007 that additional troops would be deployed to commence the surge.