Many found humor in McCain's lapses of judgment. Some, like Arianna Huffington, found justification that McCain lacks the mental capacity to be our leader:

At a stop in Jordan last week, McCain made the ludicrous claim that Al Qaeda insurgents were being trained in Iran*. Asked again about it, he dug in deeper, claiming it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known."

A few moments later, McCain's chief lady in waiting, Joe Lieberman, leaned forward and whispered in his ear. McCain promptly offered a quick rewrite: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al Qaeda."

Now, it's been widely reported that, heading into the Iraq war, George Bush had no clue about the differences between Sunni and Shia. But that was 2003, and it was George Bush. This is five years later and we're talking about John McCain. But it turns out this acclaimed foreign policy expert doesn't know the difference between Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni insurgents, Iran and Syria. Or, perhaps more charitably, he's doesn't care to know.

Yes, John McCain is a war hero, and yes, we're all grateful for his service during the Vietnam war. But as McCain's embarrassing foreign fact-finding fiascos make clear: having acted heroically in a foreign war does not magically translate into foreign policy expertise and judgment. (excerpted from Arianna Huffington's post, A McCain Moment: Do You Want Four More Years of This?)

McCain’s confusion has been widely characterized as demonstrating his inability to distinguish Sunni al Qaeda from Shiite Mahdi Army. Many, like Huffington, have suggested that it may be a "senior moment" or McCain's inability to think straight, retain information or distinguish between facts. Having a president, or even a senator, represent our nation abroad and get confused is a problem and - if it weren't so grave - it might be a little funny.

However, my take is a little different. I think that by excusing his assertions as "senior moments" may let John McCain off the hook a little too handily.

My concern is that McCain's "gaffes" about Iran are really more the result of a fundamental problem.

It's surely possible that McCain's faulty characterizations of Iranian "extremists" (shiite) and al Qaeda militants (sunni) as working together were not mistakes. If so, what would be the reason for giving us untrue information? Who would want to do that? Why? What could they gain?

Well, for starters, it's an election year. It's not beyond the scope to imagine how tweaked information about Iran or al Qaeda could impact an election. Do McCain's so-called gaffes sound at least a little too much like war drums to be dismissed as just simple mistakes? How could a world traveling senior senator (campaigning for president) make such a serious mistake? What if it wasn't a mistake at all?

It could be to the GOP's advantage to make Iran seem more dangerous than it really is. If Iran is seen as in cahoots with al Qaeda - then, perhaps voters will be less likely to want to "rock the boat" in November and maybe, just maybe, they will want to keep the current group of Republican war lords in power.

Worse case scenario? If Bush managed to provoke us into some sort of war with the nation of Iran, it might keep the Republicans in power, or so they may hope. If we began a war with Iran and were able to associate al Qaeda with Iran - wouldn't Bush be able to leave office a hero? And, by proxy, wouldn't we just have to hire Bush's choice for his successor?

The desperate thinking there might be that if we were in war with Iran, surely, we'd want to keep the GOP in command of their new war.

Here's an even more likely explanation...

At the very least, it's completely probable that McCain has internalized most of the favorite fairytale themes of Bush's administration and Cheney's neo-conservatives.

McCain may believe what he repeated four times last week!

In particular, what's troubling and the most unsettling about McCain's stories is that McCain may actually believe that Iran's government has not only tolerated but even assisted al Qaeda agents that McCain originally said were operating inside Iran.

I've neither seen nor heard any credible evidence that Iran and al Qaeda are working together. In fact, most Middle East experts explain that those two groups, representing warring tribes, are the least likely to work together.

McCain’s stories about Iran may be telltale reflections of just how thoroughly McCain has been indoctrinated into the Bush/Cheney propaganda machine.

If McCain continues to erroneously assert (or even privately believe) that Iran (shiite) and al Qaeda (sunni) are allies and possibly even one and the same, McCain can muddy the waters during a critical point in history.

This is a time when we need honesty and clarity the most. This is not the time for innuendo, fabrications, or propaganda.

Of course, John McCain can't really rewrite the truth, but he can make matters so much worse than they already are.