Does John McCain’s sick sense of humor matter?

Posted on 07/14/2008 by Juan

First, he sang ‘bomb, bomb, bomb/ bomb, bomb Iran’ to the tune of the Beach Boys’ ‘Barbara Ann.’

Now, on being told that Iran has increased its importation of American cigarettes, he quipped “Maybe that’s a way of killing them.”

Let us review the things wrong with this statement as a joke.

First of all, it is a standard sentiment that in the United States, we do not wish the people of any country ill, whatever our relations with their government. McCain was hoping Iranians would drop dead from smoking American cigarettes, not the Iranian regime. Coming on top of his ditty about bombing them, I come away with an increasingly sick feeling in my stomach that the man is a sadist who enjoys the idea of killing people.

By the way, for all the propaganda to the contrary, neither Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei nor President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has talked about killing Israelis as opposed to causing the regime in Jerusalem to collapse. Can you imagine the outcry if they joked about doing it?

I think the current crew in the White House has the same sadistic tendencies, so I’d be very sorry to see that sort of thing continue.

Second, McCain has led the charge in the Senate to get anti-tobacco legislation, so he is well aware that tobacco really does kill a lot of people.

Here is what the American Lung Association says:

“Smoking-related diseases claim an estimated 438,000 American lives each year, including those affected indirectly, such as babies born prematurely due to prenatal maternal smoking and victims of “secondhand” exposure to tobacco’s carcinogens.”

About 16,000 Americans are murdered each year, each of which causes a police investigation to be opened. Nearly 30 times that many are murdered by tobacco, but that doesn’t cause any homocide investigations.

So would not a presidential gesture be to include exports in his plans for a tobacco ban? Does he only care if Americans are devastated by this health scourge?

I remember a story about Camel cigarettes in Thailand getting ads on the back of school children’s school notebooks. The Thai government noticed and stopped the ads. Then as I remember (I don’t have time to look it up) Jesse Helms attacked Thailand for unfair trade practices.

McCain seems also to be all for the US exporting painful and early death to other people.

Finally, another thing that is wrong with the joke.

People being killed is not funny.

Couldn’t we have like a constitutional amendment or something to the effect that no one with clear sadistic tendencies may ever be Commander in Chief?

0 Retweet 0 Share 0 StumbleUpon 0 Printer Friendly Send via email

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off | Print

Comments are closed.

  • Juan Cole

    Juan Cole

    Welcome to Informed Comment, where I do my best to provide an independent and informed perspective on Middle Eastern and American politics.

    Informed Comment is made possible by your support. If you value the information and essays, I make available and write here, please take a moment to contribute what you can.

  • IC Destinations



  • Keep up with Informed Comment at:

  • Donate to Global Americana Institute

    Donate to the Global Americana Institute to support the translation into Arabic of books about America.
  • Friends and Interlocutors:

  • Recent Posts

  • Recent Comments

    • Omar Khayyam (23) (3)
      • Poplicola: Nice. The Whinfield translation has its own qualities of course. Quoth fish to duck, “‘Twill...
      • Greg Panfile: Loving these. I assume you are working from the same Persian source as Whinfield but doing new...
    • World’s 1.6 Billion Poor Going Green (6)
      • super390: I’m disappointed that there’s not more response to this posting. Prof. Cole is broaching a...
    • The Dilemma over Syria (29)
      • super390: I don’t see how either this or Libya could be defined as genocides unless the population of a...
      • Andy Lovas: Don’t agree at all. We are better than not to do everything we can to keep people from being...
    • Omar Khayyam (12) (3)
      • pabelmont: Is this a pre-global-warming lament? It seems to speak of doing the usual things that people do —...
  • Archives

  • Categories