Grumpy Gramps McCain still a sore loser

Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his "ranch" in Libya - interesting meeting with an interesting man. ~John McCain, August 15, 2009

Once he was a hero, revered by many for his Maverick ways. Now he's just a small and bitter old man impotently flailing in failed attempts to land a meaningful blow against his political betters. His stature diminishes before our eyes, as he struggles to regain some relevance, succeeding only in looking more the doddering fool by the minute.

But although McCain had time to speak on the Senate floor and on television about the lack of information provided to Congress about the attack, he didn't attend the classified briefing for senators Wednesday given to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which he is a member.

He's not the only Republican grandstanding for the cameras while failing to do their job.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), another Homeland Security committee member who was on television complaining about the lack of Benghazi information, also did not show up for the Wednesday hearing. Paul did a CNN interview from the Capitol building Wednesday in which said he had questions about the anti-Islam video, the lack of Marines in Libya, and diplomatic security. At one point he says, "I don't know enough of the details." [...]

"If you want answers, a good first step is to show up and ask a question," an administration official told The Cable. "That's what a senator does."

McCain's spokesperson said it was a "scheduling error." Took them a while to come up with that excuse. McCain didn't handle speaking for himself well at all.

I have to tell you something that just happened on Capitol Hill, and that is our senate producer Ted Barrett just ran into John McCain and asked about something that we’re hearing from Democrats, which is John McCain is calling for more information to Congress, but he had a press conference yesterday instead of going to a closed briefing where administration officials were giving more information. Well, Ted Barrett asked John McCain about that, and it was apparently an intense very angry exchange and McCain simply would not comment on it at all.

It's unclear to me why Republicans think it's good politics to make Susan Rice the villian of their imaginary scandal. When McCain takes cheap shots against her intellect, the obvious comparisons are inevitable.

Also, one of the most irritating, and little noticed comments Grumpy Gramps made about this whole ludicrous fauxrage, was that nobody died in Iran-Contra. Dennis G. makes short work of that fallacy. In fact, hundreds of thousands ultimately died because of horrendously bad, real life choices made in that era of Republican foreign policy. And I'm sure I don't need to remind you, McCain defended Condi Rice for her "misstatements" about Iraq and hundreds of thousands died because of that ill begotten invasion.