McCain’s Eight Most Inappropriate Jokes
jwilkes writes on Eyes on Obama:
If you’ve ever seen Ricky Gervais’ BBC series, The Office, you’ve already met David Brent. The miscreant man-in-charge is a serial joke-maker, though his workplace rubes almost always tend toward the inappropriate and insensitive. Jump to the real-life political David Brent: John McCain.
8. Wife Beating Joke
In a June 2008 interview with ABC News’ Jake Tapper, McCain was asked why he had passed over Nevada’s Republican Governor Jim Gibbons when choosing his state campaign chair (traditionally, the first choice if the governor and the presidential nominee are members of the same party). McCain explained that he had a longstanding relationship with the state’s lieutenant governor, and that his choice was not a snub of any kind. Pressing the subject, Tapper asked whether McCain had passed over Gibbons as a result of his relatively low approval ratings.
“And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago,” McCain laughed. D.C. yuckery aside, despite widespread news stories in Nevada, it’s possible that McCain hadn’t heard about Gibbons’ recent high-profile divorce, stemming from multiple charges of infidelity. Moreover, a cocktail waitress accused Gibbons of grabbing and threatening her with sexual assault in a parking garage. In Tapper’s words: “Awkward.”
