Is McCain's Age Showing? Tongues Wag Over Flubs
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
We interrupt the nonstop coverage of Barack Obama's overseas trip to bring you some breaking whispers about John McCain.
He has been making a series of verbal slips -- invariably described as "gaffes" -- that are starting to ricochet from liberal blogs to the mainstream media. And fairly or not, some critics are suggesting the 71-year-old Republican candidate is showing his age.
McCain referred to the "Iraq-Pakistan border" in a "Good Morning America" interview; since there is no such border, he must have meant Afghanistan-Pakistan. He has twice referred to Czechoslovakia, a country that ceased to exist in 1993; mixed up Sunnis and Shiites; and identified Vladimir Putin as president of Germany.
Aides to the Arizona senator dismiss the missteps as meaningless, noting that their man is far more accessible to journalists than Obama. "When you engage with reporters from 8:30 a.m. till 8 at night, you're bound to make a gaffe," says McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker. "People are yearning for the kind of president who takes tough questions, and that's who John McCain is."
As for the candidate's septuagenarian status, Hazelbaker says: "I'd encourage anyone who has concerns about John McCain's age to join him on the campaign trail. He keeps an exhausting schedule -- often visiting two or three states a day -- answering dozens of questions from voters and the media along the way."
(Continued here.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
We interrupt the nonstop coverage of Barack Obama's overseas trip to bring you some breaking whispers about John McCain.
He has been making a series of verbal slips -- invariably described as "gaffes" -- that are starting to ricochet from liberal blogs to the mainstream media. And fairly or not, some critics are suggesting the 71-year-old Republican candidate is showing his age.
McCain referred to the "Iraq-Pakistan border" in a "Good Morning America" interview; since there is no such border, he must have meant Afghanistan-Pakistan. He has twice referred to Czechoslovakia, a country that ceased to exist in 1993; mixed up Sunnis and Shiites; and identified Vladimir Putin as president of Germany.
Aides to the Arizona senator dismiss the missteps as meaningless, noting that their man is far more accessible to journalists than Obama. "When you engage with reporters from 8:30 a.m. till 8 at night, you're bound to make a gaffe," says McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker. "People are yearning for the kind of president who takes tough questions, and that's who John McCain is."
As for the candidate's septuagenarian status, Hazelbaker says: "I'd encourage anyone who has concerns about John McCain's age to join him on the campaign trail. He keeps an exhausting schedule -- often visiting two or three states a day -- answering dozens of questions from voters and the media along the way."
(Continued here.)
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