Since embarking on his much-ballyhooed trip to the Middle East this past weekend, Barack Obama has pretty much been ruling the news cycle, especially thanks to the bombshell announcement Saturday that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki appears to favor Obama's timetable for troop withdrawal. With the absurd amount of interpretation and re-interpretation that news set off, we figured it would be best to clear away the static and just hear what John McCain himself had to say about the matter. Luckily McCain appeared on all three network news shows this morning, ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's The Today Show, and CBS's The Early Show:



Some thoughts on today's episode, beginning at the beginning:
1) :07 It kind of seems like John McCain is napping and is woken up by the sound of Diane Sawyer's voice. TPMtv has several advanced theories about what this could mean. Old people tend to nap frequently, it is true. TPMtv's #1 theory, however: John McCain is a cyborg whose cybernetic heart is triggered by the sound of Diane Sawyer's voice.
2) :40 Voted against, railed against. Rallied against, voted against. Railed against, voted against... John McCain has the cadence of a beat poet. A beat poet who desperately, desperately wants to remind us that Barack Obama was against the surge.
3) 2:05 What was that?? John McCain so shocked at the mere suggestion that Barack Obama was ahead of him on Afghanistan policy that he actually chokes on air! TPMtv really regrets that McCain wasn't sipping some water from his Good Morning America mug at that moment because that would've been a classic spit take.
4) 4:10 Ok, ok, an honest slip-of-the-tongue that TPMtv may or may not have cruelly exploited. But seriously now, how many of these has he committed when talking about the Middle East / foreign policy? Let's just say it's enough that TPMtv is in the process of compiling a massive John McCain Foreign Affairs Brain Fart reel for a future episode. Stay tuned.
5) 4:43 A great new meme from McCain: it's more complicated than just troops, it's about a larger strategy for the whole region, Obama wouldn't understand. As if all along McCain was the one with the nuanced region-wide policy and Obama was the one just calling for more troops.
6) 5:23 Bring 'er on home Johnny!

VIEIRA: If the Iraqi government were to say, if you were president, 'we want a timetable for troops being removed,' would you agree to that?
MCCAIN: I've been there too many times, I've met too many times with them, and I know what they want. They want it based on conditions.

No no no no no, Ali al-Dabbagh. You're way off. John McCain knows what you want. Go talk to him and then get back to us.