McCain Campaign Tries to Clean Up Mess

McCain's campaign has released a statement trying to spin hard out McCain's insane claim that Iran is supporting Al Qaeda militants in Iraq. Think Progress has an excerpt:

In a press conference today, John McCain misspoke and immediately corrected himself by stating that Iran is in fact supporting radical Islamic extremists in Iraq, not Al Qaeda — as the transcript shows. Democrats have launched political attacks today because they know the American people have deep concerns about their candidates’ judgment and readiness to lead as commander in chief.

The problem is that McCain did not just misspeak. He repeated this claim TWICE in the same press conference. And then he said the same crazy thing on Hugh Hewitt's show (you can listen to it here).

This is no slip up. McCain really believed that Iran has been assisting Al Qaeda. What would make him claim something so obviously insane multiple times? How could we possibly trust McCain with CIC powers over the largest military in the history of mankind when he doesn't even know the basic details of our adversaries in the Mideast?