McCain's Campaign Brain Strain

There was much ado this weekend over MSNBC's David Shuster's comment that the Clintons seemed to be "pimping out" their daughter Chelsea. Blogger Will Bunch at Attytood got it right when he said that comment wasn't the worst thing to be said in public about Chelsea. This doozie came out in 1998, when Chelsea was barely 18 years old:

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." -- Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner


To freshen up your memory, here are some other McCain classics:

In his 1986 senate campaign, McCain referred to the Leisure World retirement community as "Seizure World", where "97 percent of the people vote and the other 3 percent are in intensive care."

Up until his 2000 election run, McCain openly used the term "gook", in reference to his Vietnamese torturers during the Vietnam War. After growing criticism from the Asian American community in the politically important state of California, McCain reversed his position.

In March 2007, McCain apologized for using the term "tar baby"-- although he was not using the term in reference to African Americans, he agreed he was wrong to use a term that some view as having racist overtones.

During a campaign appearance on April 18, 2007, McCain sang the words “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the melody of the Beach Boys' song "Barbara Ann". , Asked whether the joke he made was insensitive, McCain retorted, "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

On May 18, 2007, during a meeting to negotiate immigration legislation, Senator John Cornyn told McCain, "Wait a second here. I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day-- You're out of line." McCain replied, "Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room."