When Bad Republicans Act Idiotically

The Extreme Right hates CNN's Michael Ware, and for good reason. The week before last, Ware had this to say about Senator John McCain's claim that Americans could walk safely in some parts of Baghdad:

"I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad. The fact that Senator McCain and a delegation can drive from the airport and walk around parts of Baghdad wrapped in a heavy security envelope is not new. Generals and American representatives have been doing such things throughout the war."

Well, last week, McCain traveled to Baghdad to prove Ware wrong, and he did indeed walk through a market in Baghdad. But during his stroll, McCain was accompanied by "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead."

Obviously, McCain's trip to Baghdad was a political catastrophe not only for McCain but for all the other Bush Apologists who have refused to accept that the Iraq situation cannot be resolved militarily. The radical right apparently knows that McCain really screwed the pooch on this Iraq trip, so it is doing its best to move attention away from McCain's colossal frack-up by claiming . . . [brace yourselves] . . . that Ware heckled McCain at a press conference:

A group of conservative political weblogs offered new evidence in continuation of their allegation that CNN reporter Michael Ware disrupted a Sunday press conference in Baghdad with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other Congress members. However, RAW STORY learned from the writer who reported the article that was the basis for their claims that she observed "no disruption of the press conference."

On Tuesday, a group of blogs pointed to a Sunday, April 1 story from Agence France-Presse reporter Jennie Matthew as evidence that a reporter in the back of the press conference had "giggled" while the Arizona Republican spoke.

She told RAW STORY in an e-mail that Michael Ware was not the culprit.

"As far as I'm aware there was no disruption of the press conference at all," wrote Matthew from Baghdad. "The reporter who giggled at the back was not Michael Ware, whom I don't remember giggling or making any kind of disturbance. I think I remember him wanting to ask a question, but the congressmen ended the news conference."

On Monday, RAW STORY posted unedited videos from CNN of the Sunday press conference. News aggregator Matt Drudge had alleged that Ware, the Baghdad correspondent who has criticized Sen. McCain for exaggerating the Iraqi capital's safety, had "heckled" the senator. The videos appeared to confirm Ware's assertion that the press conference had ended without incident and before he could ask a question. * * *

Is this the best the wingnuts can do? You know, if there is a scandal here, it is that Michael Ware and the other reporters did not heckle McCain at that ridiculous press conference.

Maybe there was no heckling because the folks in the audience sensed that McCain's political stunt effectively ended his candidacy for president and they felt sorry for him. I think Josh Marshall has referred to this as McCain's "Dukakis in a Tank" moment, but I think it more resembles a Kaloogian. The word "idiocy" also applies.

And speaking of idiots, this is very funny:

When Justice Department official William Moschella was asked why the Department had fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, he told Congress that “Iglesias had delegated to his first assistant the overall running of the office. And, quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office.” Internal documents from the time show officials planning to accuse Iglesias of being an "absentee landlord" to justify his firing.

Iglesias did, in fact, leave the office for 45 days each year. But that's because he's a a captain in the Navy Reserve -- something that was no secret to his superiors.

So now the Office of Special Counsel is investigating whether Iglesias was wrongfully terminated due to his reserve duty, Newsweek reports. It is against the law for employers to discriminate against members of the U.S. military. * * *

This just keeps getting better and better.