It seems the Post’s Karen DeYoung isn’t buying Randy Scheunemann’s line that McCain wasn’t confused just hardcore (from an online chat this morning) …

McCain seemed sort of foggy in the interview, much of which was about U.S. relations with Latin American baddies Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. Then interviewer asked about Zapatero and McCain seemed to be winging it, appearing to think that Zapatero was the leader of someplace in Latin America and reciting the same rote answer as for the others about not meeting with leaders who don’t support freedom and the U.S.

Meanwhile, Joe Klein thinks it’s not such a hot idea to put “a chill in the relationship with one of our NATO allies simply because McCain misheard a question.”

Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder gave Randy Scheunemann another bite at the apple after it became clear that McCain said precisely the opposite in April of what Scheunemann says he intended to say yesterday. Saith Schuenemann …

In this week’s interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally. If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America’s adversaries. It’s called keeping youtr options open, unlike Senator Obama who has publically committed to meeting some of the world’s worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office.

So saying he might meet with Zapatero might amount to making “reckless promises to meet America’s adversaries”? It’s not easy being as deep in a hole as Randy is at the moment. But America’s adversaries? He might want to take a glance back at the NATO charter, which of course commits the United States to treating any attack on Spain as an attack on America. He’s really willing to create a diplomatic incident just to avoid admitting that McCain got confused about what he was being asked. On the other hand, I guess Randy’s nonchalance about binding NATO treating obligations puts his insistence on getting Georgia into NATO into a rather different light.

For the moment I guess he’s sticking to the line that McCain actually has Spain on probation as a potential member of the Axis of Evil 2.0. And on this US News has some helpful follow up.

Okay, a moment to take stock on the embarrassing McCain gaffe. As noted earlier, despite the fact that McCain repeatedly suggests that Spain is a country in Latin America, McCain’s foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, insists that McCain wasn’t confused, knew exactly who Zapatero was and meant every word of what he said. So with the McCain campaign sticking to its guns, let’s review the possibilities of what happened here.

Option #1: McCain is so addled he not only doesn’t know who Zapatero is but doesn’t even know where Spain is located.

Option #2: McCain was not confused but actually meant his very belligerent comments about Spain and the Zapatero government (Scheunemann’s line).

Option #3: Through some mixture of confusion and inability to understand the interviewer’s accent, McCain was confused about who he was talking about and decided to wing it, assuming that the person he was being asked about was some other left-wing strong man from Latin America and answering with the standard boilerplate about standing up to America’s enemies.

So let’s run through the options. I do think McCain’s age and sharpness are real issues and legitimate campaign issues. But while I think it’s possible that McCain’s doesn’t remember who ‘Zapatero’ is, I obviously don’t believe that in a calm moment he wouldn’t be able to locate Spain on a map. So let’s rule out option one is a possible but unlikely option.

So what about option #2? It’s true that the neocons around McCain really do not like Zapatero. There are several nonsensical reasons but it at least started with his position against the Iraq War — and the fact that he shortcircuited right wing efforts to exploit the ghastly Madrid train bombings. So it is true that they don’t like him. But this option isn’t credible either for two and possible three reasons. First, in the exchange, McCain repeatedly refers to Spain as a country in Latin America. So if Randy really wants to stick to this explanation, he needs to explain why McCain thinks Spain is a country in Latin America, which I assume he doesn’t want to do. You just can’t have it both ways. Either he misunderstood at some level what he was being asked or he has a presidential disqualifying level of ignorance about geography. The second reason is that back in April McCain explicitly said that he wanted to move past earlier disagreements with Spain and said specifically that he wanted to Zapatero to visit him at the White House if he is elected president. So even if we set aside the geographical confusion, McCain’s camp would need to explain why he’s changed his policy 180 degrees since April. A possible third explanation is that McCain would not take such a confrontational stance toward a NATO ally. But let’s be honest, I wouldn’t put it past him. Still, one and two are dispositive.

So we’re on to option #3. Some version of option #3 is the only credible answer. Whether it was because of ignorance, confusion or inability to understand what the interviewer was saying, McCain clearly didn’t understand what he was being asked. And rather than stop and say, I didn’t understand your question, could you restate it?, (Or, who are you referring to?) he decided to wing it and assumed he was being asked a question about another Latin American strong man bad guy. This is simply the only credible explanation that takes account of all the evidence. I think it’s a generous read to conclude that the only issue was that McCain couldn’t understand the interviewer’s accent. But it’s definitely possible. Even that, though, puts McCain in a pretty bad light.

Equally bad, Randy Scheunemann would rather further inflame Spanish-American relations by ridiculously insisting that McCain knew exactly what he saying than admit the obvious — that he didn’t understand the question. It wouldn’t be that surprising. But given McCain has premised his whole campaign on foreign policy experience they’ve clearly decided it would simply be too damaging to admit he was either a) confused, b) ignorant or c) reckless enough to spout off aggressive remarks when he didn’t even know who he was being asked about.

From the NYT:

Editors’ Note: September 18, 2008

An earlier version of this article cited two sources who were said to have been briefed on a conversation in which John J. Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, had told Vikrim S. Pandit, Citigroup’s chief executive, that “we need a merger partner or we’re not going to make it.” On Thursday, Morgan Stanley vigorously denied that Mr. Mack had made the comment, as did Citigroup, which had declined to comment on Wednesday.

The Times’s two sources have since clarified their comments, saying that because they were not present during the discussions, they could not confirm that Mr. Mack had in fact made the statement. The Times should have asked Morgan Stanley for comment and should not have used the quotation without doing more to verify the sources’ version of events.

Ouch.

Jonathan Martin, who covers the Republican side/McCain campaign for The Politico takes a look at McCain’s Zapatero gaffe and doesn’t seem to be buying the McCain camp’s explanation.

TPM Reader EM …

Enough. John McCain should not get a free pass on this one. On a cynical level, can you imagine if this had been said by either Obama, Biden–or for that matter, Palin?

I’m astonished by the amount of rationalizing and excuses being put out there on this “gaffe.” Yeah, I suppose the possibility of being confused by the line of questioning, the accent is plausible for you and me but for the potential POTUS–I don’t think so. Furthermore, Spain was attacked by the same terrorist group that orchestrated 9/11. Does pulling the troops out of Iraq trump that? Honestly? Our relationship with this European ally is that precarious.

Scheunemann ratcheted up the bravado. I say we call them on it. He and his campaign have reminded us time and time again of his foreign expertise compared to Obama’s. McCain needs to explain.

Check out Sarah Palin last night getting cocky at the first town hall meeting where she was prepared to take questions from the audience: “And if you want specifics with specific policy or countries, go ahead and you can ask me. You can even play stump the candidate if you want to!”

Specific countries? Now that’s some grasp of foreign policy:

It should be noted that McCain quickly stepped in after this and Palin was not subjected to a quiz.

Good first question: Which continent is Spain on?

The Washington Post has gotten hold of McCain’s Spain goof. And McCain advisor Randy Scheunemann has sent the Post an email suggesting that McCain knew exactly who Zapatero was and was simply repeating the neocon anti-Zapatero line.

Now, I was away Tuesday and Thursday, so I still want to come back to whether Scheunemann was working with bamboozler Amir Taheri on his made-up Obama-Iraq piece. So we’ll get back to that.

But on this, nice try, Randy. I don’t doubt that Scheunemann and his neocon pals still have it in for Zapatero for pulling his troops out of Iraq. I admit it is difficult to believe that McCain either doesn’t know who Zapatero is or doesn’t know which continent Spain is currently a part of. And we can question the wisdom of a major party presidential candidate suggesting that a major NATO ally might be part of his Axis of Evil — along with Hugo Chavez. But Randy’s attempted save here does not add up. If McCain knew who Zapatero was, why did he repeatedly refer to him as a Latin American leader? Spain is not in Latin America. I’m certain of it.

I mean, maybe McCain did know exactly who he was talking about and just got confused about Spain being a country in Latin America. But I’m not sure that’s much better.

Read the transcript or listen to the interview. The most logical explanation of this gaffe is that McCain got asked about Zapatero right after being asked about Chavez, Castro and Morales. Not remembering who Zapatero was, he assumed he must be some other Latin American tinpot dictator and answered the question accordingly. We could be generous and assume he was just upping the ante on the normal neocon line. But by repeatedly referring to Spain as a country in Latin America, McCain just doesn’t make that interpretation tenable for any fair-minded reader.

Face it, he got confused.

Late Update: We’re getting a flood of good emails interpreting what happened here. The most generous interpretation we’re hearing is that McCain couldn’t understand what the interviewer was saying — she’s a native Spanish speaker speaking in an accented English, though she says repeatedly she’s talking about Spain. Rather than ask her to clarify he decided to wing it, assuming she must be talking about some other Latin American bad guy. I think there’s a good chance this is what happened. (I don’t think that if you actually walked up to McCain today and asked him whether Spain is in Europe or Latin America that he wouldn’t know. But on the fly he did seem to get confused.) But I don’t think this puts him in a very good light. And, needless to say, this interpretation is entirely inconsistent with Scheunemann’s suggestion that McCain knew exactly who he was talking about and just wanted to stick it to Zapatero. Whether he got confused about who Zapatero was or was too proud to admit he didn’t understand the question, he still shot from the hip and insisted that Zapatero, the Prime Minister of a major NATO ally country, is from Latin America. He’s not ready for prime time.

Obama has a new TV ad running tying McCain to George W. Bush, the troubled economy, and Bush’s efforts to privatize Social Security, but so far it’s been limited to airing in Michigan. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.