Beltway Snark

This is one fantastic case of open moth, inset foot, and push in all the way to the knee. Some nitwit named Molly Priesmeyer wrote a “joking” article for Minnesota Monitor (a Geroge Soros joint) about the sad state of McCain’s teeth. What apparently nobody at the Monitor had the brain cells to figure out is that McCain’s teeth are FUBAR because those damn Viet Cong busted them out during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. Yeah, not so funny now, is it?

But wait, the story gets better. After being told by several the reason for McCain’s dental issues, the article was left up without correction or an apology for another 24 hours. It has since been taken down and an apology published:

To answer the question from GOP blogger Michael Brodkorb that kicked off the controversy about this post yesterday: No, neither Molly Priesmeyer nor I was aware that McCain had had his teeth broken as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war. No, we would not have piled on with further aspersions on the appearance of his teeth if we had known.

The item was not intended to make a serious point of any sort, as we thought the headline suggested right off the bat (”The dental gap: Does McCain have presidential teeth?”). It was a bit of web ephemera that we found funny mainly for its absurdity–sort of like the videos we’ve posted from Obama Girl, the McCain Girls, and La Pequena, and items we’ve written about phenomena such as social media sites obsessed with Barack Obama. The POW backstory turns a joke noted in passing into a lousy joke. And we’re sorry for that.

We’re also sorry that this dust-up has inadvertently provided yet another sideshow in which genuinely important questions about the candidate and his campaign are circumvented. There’s far too much of that going around.

Really, it didn’t occur to you just once that McCain’s teeth, like his arms and legs, might be a result of 5 1/2 years of torture? And it took you a few days and a bunch of people correcting you before you figured that out? Bunch of geniuses over there at Minnesota Monitor, let me tell you.