Condom? Never heard of him!

It's really too funny to pass up. John McCain has resuscitated the "Straight Talk Express," apparently with the intention of using it to sling the rankest bullshit. You really owe it to yourself to read the NY Times report on McCain's flim-flammery when asked by a reporter about his stance with regard to AIDS prevention. It's a riot. Evidently, McCain doesn't know; he has to wait for his aide to get back to him with a dossier on his position; he's not sure whether condoms help prevent HIV transmission; he's not sure if government money should pay for condoms, but he suspects not; he's pretty sure Tom Coburn has a position paper on it that he agrees with, or used to agree with; he's pretty sure he agrees with the president, though it's not at all clear that he knows what the president himself thinks.

I leave the parsing of the "Straight Talk" irony to others, since it's going to be a long campaign and I think it's pretty clear that there will be more than plenty future opportunities. For now, I'll just restrict myself to pointing out that, among the many, many stupidities revealed in this interview, by far the most ridulous is McCain's idea that he is going to endear himself to anyone by tying himself more closely to Bush.

Evidently, John McCain is under the serious misapprehension that his problem is with the religious base, who see him as a maverick, and don't much like it. I think it's much, much more likely that his problem is with the people who used to think he was a maverick, and liked it, and who now are getting a pretty clear object lesson in just what a conniving, crooked-talking, cynical ass-clown the man really is. The base aren't going to buy this kind of staring-at-the-ceiling, I-wonder-what-James-Dobson-would-say bullshit, so he's screwed for the primaries. And the 10% of swing voters all know that, whatever this crap is, it ain't mavericky. So, no general election.

However, I'm a generous spirit, so let me offer McCain some assistance with answering the AIDS/condoms question. Anyone who refuses to say that condoms help prevent AIDS transmission is a lying sack of shit. Anyone who nonetheless defends abstinence-only education -- let alone in Africa -- is simply saying that he cares more about the supposed purity of people's immortal souls than about the sanctity of their lives on earth. And anyone who claimed to be a "straight talker" would come clean on both. So, McCain could easily have pleased the base and told the truth, all at once, by saying that condoms prevent AIDS, but sinners deserve to die. There. Problem solved.