John McCain thinks Spain is a hostile country in Latin America

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Geezus.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo found out about this gaffe via El País, Spain's "paper of record".

John McCain, is being interviewed by a journalist with an obvious Castillian accent. She asks him a series of questions about his future policies towards Latin America (which was the focus of the press conference).

Then in the last 30-40 seconds of the clip she asks him if he's looking forward to meeting with Jorge Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain. This is a somewhat tricky diplomatic question. Since winning the elections more than a year ago, Zapatero has not had a chance to visit the White House, nor has George Bush gone to Spain for an official meeting.

What does McCain do? Give his standard talking point about meeting with friendly countries only and standing tough against rogue and hostile countries.

The reporter re-frases the question 3 more times, with the last one being, "what about Europe? Spain is in Europe". McCain sticks to the talking about as if Spain were a Latin American threat to the United States.

Here's the audio clip :

Unbelievable. Not only that. McCain had bragged earlier in the audio clip that unlike Barack Obama, he's been to "the region", alluding to his visit to the pro-torture, pro-war, pro-Bush Colombia.

The fact that neither candidate has shown any real interest in Latin America, Spain and all of the Spanish-speaking world is way beyond pathetic.

It's ultimately dangerous to the region's geo-political stability. And it's another sign of the lack of diplomatic know-how that became the imprint of the Bush Administration.

In other words, it's just another example of the "ugly American".

H/T to VRuz.

See also Kyle at Citizen Orange.

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