Like many liberals, my view of McCain has been that I may not like him, but I could live with him because he has to be better than Bush. If McCain had beaten Bush in the 2000 GOP primary I believe that the country would be much less worse off than it is now.  I disagree with McCain on many, many things but I’ve always felt like the Senator can at least steer the nation competently.

However, the growing volume of foreign policy gaffes and gibberish emanating from John McCain has me worried. I am worried that we might actually hire this guy to be our military’s Commander-In-Chief and run our foreign policy. I’m worried that too many voters allow themselves to be distracted by phony issues and war stories to pay attention to what McCain has been saying. At some point a series of verbal gaffes and miscues ceases to be funny or “authentic”  and becomes cause for alarm.

For me it started not when McCain joked he would “bomb bomb Iran”, but when he took a trip overseas earlier this year to highlight his foreign policy acumen. During a press conference in Jordan McCain said he was concerned that Iran was training al-Qaeda extremists in Iraq. The U.S. does believe that Iran, a Shiite country is training Shiite militants to fight against us in Iraq, but not members of al-Qaeda, a Sunni group.

“We continue to be concerned about Iranian taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back,” he said. When asked about that statement McCain answered “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” It wasn’t  until his friend Joe Lieberman whispered in McCain’s ear that he corrected himself.

McCain later made similar comments on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. “As you know, there are Al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq.” This wasn’t just a one-time slip.

Earlier this spring, McCain stated that troops in Iraq are below pre-surge levels even though at the time there were 20,000 more units in Iraq than when the surge policy began.

In June, aboard the Straight Talk Express, McCain confused Somalia and Sudan when discussing the situation in Darfur.

When asked on Good Morning America whether “the situation in Afghanistan is precarious and urgent,” McCain answered “I’m afraid it’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border.” Pakistan and Iraq do not share a border.

Several times this month McCain has referred to the non-existent nation of Czechoslovakia.

Most recently McCain has claimed that the surge was responsible for the so-called Sunni Awakening, even though it began before the surge policy was even announced.

I know that running for President is stressful and that all candidates make mistakes. Obama has made a few of his own. But one of McCain’s main selling points is that he is the wise elder statesman while Obama is just a foreign policy naif. There comes a point when the isolated mistakes begin to form a pattern.  Does John McCain have the foreign policy depth of understanding (especially regarding Iraq and Afghanistan) that this country needs in order to confront the challenges we face? Is McCain fit to be Commander-In-Chief?

Increasingly, it appears that the answer is “no.” Especially after Obama’s tour de force overseas trip this month. The Iraqi govenment supports his idea for a timetable and even President Bush is talking about “time horizons” while McCain trips over his own words, trying vainly to convince us we should elect him because the surge has allegedly worked. It’s pathetic, I almost feel sorry for him. I don’t see how he can win.