The Pain from Spain Lays Mainly in My Brain......

My head hurts.....

As I do my errands I find myself studying my fellow citizens.....trying to figure out which half of them are actually McCain voters. Guys like Cimarron.....who think Obama is a Marxist, and who are blithely ignorant that our current, across-the-board meltdown might have something to do with eight years of Republican mismanagement.

If Obama is a Marxist.......how does the Bush Administration's nationalization of AIG sit with these "real Americans". It is a move straight out of Hugo Chavez' playbook.

I guess there is no danger of a big pharmaceutical company or health insurer needing nationalization......dammit.

For us soccer folk, there is a delicious irony attached to the whole AIG rescue deal. The NASCAR crowd that supports Bush must be just thrilled to realize their tax dollars......to the tune of $100 million per year.....are now sponsoring Manchester United.

At least the uniforms are red.....and Wayne Rooney almost looks American. Owen Hargreaves was born in Canada.....but fuck Canada anyway.

And.....speaking of Hugo Chavez:

John McCain is already having Reaganesque Senior Moments.....either that or he is an embarrassing dumbfuck.

Mixing up the Sunnis and Shia was one thing; mixing up Al Queda and the Iranians was another. Dipshit McCain has just pissed off the entire country of Spain.

It was hard enough being an American visiting Spain. I have to make sure I pack bunches of anti-Bush T-shirts to casually flash......in bars, in banks, asking directions, etc. Then the annoyance of constantly having to explain how on Earth half of all Americans could be dumb enough to vote for a moron like George Bush......and the equally endless explanations from Spaniards about how important it is for us to elect Barack Obama.

I know. I get it.

Now this: McCain was being interviewed by a Spanish reporter. He fielded some questions about this and that, about the Americas.....which once were Spanish after all. The reporter asked McCain if he would be willing to meet with Sr. Zapatero, Spain's socialist prime minister.

"I will meet with those leaders who are our friends and who want to work with us cooperatively." He then went back to talking about South America and bitching about Hugo Chavez.

The reporter repeated the question two more times.....hinting to McCain that Sr. Zapatero was actually from Spain.....not South America.

"I will reunite with any leader that has the same principles and philosophy that we do: human rights, democracy, and liberty. And I will confront those that don't [have them]."

So......John McCain considers Spain..... a partner in NATO with troops still fighting in Afghanistan....to not share our American values to the point where he will refuse to meet with the Spanish president.

Either that or McCain had no idea who Zapatero was. While being interviewed by the Spanish press.

The Keating Five has started to come up again......a bunch of mildly corrupt politicians from the 80's....the worst of whom was John McCain. Another was Alan Cranston, our Senator from California. We knew Cranston well.......he was a busy Senator and I met him half a dozen times at events and even just wandering around wineries in Sonoma.

The third time I met him he came breezing through the kitchen at an event. He saw me and stopped and put out his hand:

"Michael! Good to see you! I last saw you at Mary Green's last October. I hope you have some of that delicious wild smoked salmon for me today......"

In a nutshell, he remembered me, my name, where we had last met and when, what my specialty was, and even the fact that I am kooky about wild vs. farmed salmon.

Either that, or his staff remembered.......took notes on everything and prepared him on the fly.

"OK, Alan. Next stop, the caterer is named Michael. You last saw him at Mary Green's in Monterey last October. He is nutty about wild salmon, and the stuff he smokes isn't bad. OK, the piano player will be Jonathon Lee. He has MS, but he keeps playing and you like his stuff. You saw him at an event.........."

Not only did I always vote for Alan Cranston......I would have gone his bail if they had put him in the slammer with John McCain and Keating.

McCain's utter lack of preparation and knowlege of even the most salient facts about a major ally is truly mind-blowing. This is what Carli Fiorina meant when she said that he could not run a major company. The fact that his staff let him walk into an interview not knowing the name of the president of the country is even more telling. What a bunch of dummies!

No wonder my CEO clients are going Obama. There is not a single hostess in Pebble Beach would not have been better prepared for a friggin' cocktail party......much less a major foreign policy interview. Not only would they know Zapatero's name, but they would know his wife's, his kids.....who her designer was and what she likes to drink.

What a bunch of arrogant dummies.....

Either that......or McCain really hates Spain, and wants to confront them because they have a socialist leader.

Oh, great.

I guess I better get shopping for some more T-shirts......