Adviser: McCain Considers Zapatero A "NATO Ally,"

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been persona non grata at the White House since Spain pulled its troops out of Iraq in 2004. The Spanish prime minister has, through intermediates, requested a White House visit, and President Bush has essentially given him the diplomatic finger.  Asked by a radio talk show host whether he'd meet with Zapatero, McCain said that he "will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America."  When pressed, McCain would not committ to a meeting with the president, nor would he rule one out.

I'm willing to meet with any leader that's dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy, and freedom and I will stand up to those that do not.

This equivocation, combined with most readers' lack of familiarity with the context, has created what on the surface looks like a flap but is might be more than a flutter - a simple restatement of McCain's position.

A blogger at Foreign Policy website sums up the prevailing view of McCain opponents:

"It fairly obvious that McCain doesn't intend to describe Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain as one of America's enemies, he just has no idea what the interviewer is talking about."

As in -- did he have a senior moment? Did he get confused? Did the interviewer have too much of an accent? Was McCain thinking about the Zapatistas in Mexico? The Zapatas? Why did he reference Latin America?

Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, writes in an e-mail to me that McCain knew precisely what the questioner meant, and that, indeed, "Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview."

But in April, McCain strongly hinted that he'd let bygones be bygones and expected to invite Zapatero to the White House.

Why, I asked by way of follow up, did McCain seem to change his mind?

Here's what Scheunemann e-mailed back:

 

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. 

 

Here's a guess: McCain would meet with Zapatero, but not at the White House. Is Malta still available for these things?

What was in McCain's head is an unanswerable question, and his political antagonists won't give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

But neither, it seems, will the Spanish press, which instead of reading McCain as signaling his willingness to one day to meet with Zapatero, is reading him as a numbskull who has no idea who Zapatero is.