McCain Supports 'Youth in Asia"

Report by Janet Rowlands, KY Chapter

Semantics generally hinder understanding, but generally don’t lead to major political humiliations. McCain bucked the trend yesterday when he answered a question from the audience at a televised event. When asked his stance on euthanasia, McCain, perhaps showing his age, or lack of understanding of so-called “twenty-five cent” words, responded by telling the crowd jokingly, “I absolutely support ‘youth in Asia’ ... just as I support various children around the state of Arizona and District of Columbia,” just before breaking into a rendition of a Beach Boys classic, “‘round ‘round get around, I get around ....” Receiving much the same response he got with his “Bomb-Iran/Barbara-Ann” song, McCain quickly dove into a five minute explanation of how he was able to differentiate young asians from those “sick, 'charlie' bastards” who locked him in a cage in Vietnam, before a clearly shaken-up campaign worker stopped him long enough to whisper something in his ear. McCain sat dumbly for a second, then muttered questioningly, “‘Youth in Asia’ means put to death ... is that some kind of gang lingo?” At that point McCain’s microphone was fortuitously disabled.”