John McCain saves his next job

America Wants to Know almost fired its whole rag-tag bunch of Gypsy fortune tellers and psychics yesterday when the Associated Press reported that John McCain was going to give a speech Wednesday criticizing Hillary Clinton for indecisiveness on foreign policy.

"The Democratic front-runner wants to have it both ways when it comes to foreign policy," the speech read. It went on to slam Senator Clinton for voting for the Iraq War but now opposing it, "sort of." McCain also planned to say, according to his campaign staff on Tuesday, that "this is not the '90s," we live in the "post-September 11 world," and the commander in chief doesn't have "the luxury to conduct our national security by means of triangulation."

If you're too young to remember, that's a slam against Senator Clinton's husband.

We were dismayed to read this, not because we're defenders of the Clinton record, but because we spend a lot of money keeping a team of fortune tellers and psychics on staff and they just emerged from their trances to predict that Senator Clinton would choose Senator John McCain to be the vice presidential nominee on her ticket.

Clearly, if Senator McCain was going to take pot shots at Senator Clinton and the Clinton administration's record, our team of seers was just flat wrong.

But before we could fire the lot of them and hire Nancy Reagan's astrologer, an amazing thing happened. This morning, the Associated Press reported this:

CAMDEN, S.C. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain has decided not to assail Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton for her stance on the Iraq War in a speech Wednesday at a military prep school.

What do you know. Our psychics were right.

The AP reports that late Tuesday, Senator McCain said he had not yet seen the remarks, but planned "to look at them very carefully."

He had not yet seen the remarks?

McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan confirmed to the AP Tuesday night that Senator McCain had not seen "the language in the speech about Clinton," but still planned to give the speech as written. Then today, the day of the speech, Ms. Buchanan said the senator would not be criticizing Hillary Clinton in his remarks.

America Wants To Know keeps Lieutenant Columbo on retainer to figure these things out, and he has been following John McCain around for two days.

The lieutenant suspects that John McCain blindsided his South Carolina campaign staff. There they were, happily working to help the senator win the South Carolina primary, doing what any competent Republican campaign staff in South Carolina would do, working up an attack on Hillary Clinton. How were they to know that Senator McCain has been conducting a private back-channel conversation with the Clintons? How were they to know that Senator McCain has made himself available for a spectacular reach-across-the-aisle moment, sometime next summer, when Senator Clinton will ask Senator McCain to join her ticket?

How could anybody know about that?

I'd better take my psychics out for a nice lunch before they leave me to go to work for Daily Kos.


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