McCain’s Op-Ed Piece Rejected by NY Times

July 21, 2008 (New York) – The New York Times today rejected an essay written by presumptive Republican nominee John McCain defending his Iraq war policy.

Opinion Page Editor David Shipley emailed the McCain campaign that he could not accept the piece as written, but would be pleased to look at another draft.

“We think Senator McCain needs an editor and a fact checker. We appreciate that he took the time to write the piece himself, apparently using a quill pen, his own blood and parchment. But to be perfectly frank, the piece is just an incoherent mess.”

In the essay, McCain uses oddly antiquated terminology and refers to Iraq as Persia. McCain wrote that the U.S. must “defeat the Persians before moving on to conquer the Germanians. If need be, we must fight until our last volley of arrows has darkened the sky, and the last flaming boulder has been slung from our catapults. Verily, it will be a dark day for the New World if the godless heathens triumph.

“My friends, I have been around for a long time,” McCain wrote. “Just as I helped conquer the evil Xerxes millennia ago, I’m confident as president I can defeat whoever it is we’re fighting in Persia now.”

Home