Some of John McCain’s apologists are trying to dispel the notion that the Arizona senator wouldn’t be surprised, or disturbed, if the U.S. is in Iraq for 100 years. They’re quibbling over McCain’s syntax, hoping to make it appear that critics have distorted the candidate’s prognostications. McCain’s not saying we should or could be embroiled in Iraq for a century, they claim; he’s just trying to make the point that it could take longer than a decade or so. 

But, McCain isn’t helping his spinners. On Thursday, he repeated the 100-year prediction. Notably, he was speaking to an audience of Republican supporters and funders in Salt Lake City, so McCain got a warm reception and probably left there feeling bucked up.

Outside that room, however, the temperature drops precipitously. All the major polls show that, overwhelmingly, Americans want U.S. forces to bid Iraq adieu in four years, if not sooner. McCain’s insistence that we’re going in the other direction -- embracing the continuing war -- shows what a delusionist he is.

In response to that, let us put this simple question to John McCain: What is wrong with you?

Yessir, we know that when it comes to foreign policy, you have been involved in making, assessing and overseeing it for longer than either of the prospective Democratic presidential nominees.

But the current foreign policy blunder is enough to show that experience isn’t everything. If bad judgment, unreality and nationalism are in the mix, they can negate whatever advantage experience brings to the table.

You’d have to say that the veteran, experienced Mr. McCain is already proving himself to be a bad leader. He seems to think, like George W. Bush, that we can be brainwashed into believing the mire is actually a spa pool; that 4,000 U.S. deaths in Iraq have been gloriously and almost romantically sacrificed, and that the utter devastation of Iraq amounts to an extreme case of urban renewal.

Certainly, and sadly, there was a time when repeating the big lie worked wonders. Uber patriots were everywhere, ready to string up dissenters.

But the lie has worn thin and, though there are still hard-core believers, it is beginning to wear out. That’s what the polls invariably show. McCain’s disregard for public opinion shows his other weakness -- that, like the diabolical Dick Cheney, he considers his judgment superior to the public will. Cheney, after all, recently gave the most disturbing but candid response to date from any of the warmongers, when reminded that most Americans want out of Iraq. “So?” he said.

Even after his reputation for “straight talk” began to come undone, McCain still held a certain intrigue for reporters and, it appeared, the public at large. But, somewhere since he first talked about running for this year’s Republican nomination and actually sealing the deal, he lost it. Suddenly, McCain has become a dried up, boring conventionalist. He no longer looks, talks or acts like the maverick the GOP needs in a year when “change” is the word in the wind.

Compared to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, McCain seems like yesterday’s news. On the two most important matters to the public he purports to serve, McCain rests on tried and failed propositions. He supports continuation of a lousy and morally dubious war. He supports making the tax cuts permanent (mind you, these are the tax cuts that were supposed to take the U.S. economy to the stars.).

The presumptive Republican nominee should know that, whether he faces Obama or Clinton, age will be a factor in November. But it won’t be how old he is that turns people off -- it will be how old and decrepit his ideas are.