Just when you thought a former principled POW and American hero couldn’t make himself look any sillier after a year of debasing himself for people like Jerry Falwell, the tank moment has definitely done it. John McCain’s ludicrous denial of the war all around him has gotten him and the unflattering images onto news pages all across the web, including this piece from the New York Times (linked to from the home page of the Huffington Post).

Remember Michael Dukakis in a tank? It was the quintessentially foolish moment of a very foolish campaign.

I think we’ve just seen John McCain’s tank moment.

As ThinkProgress has it, McCain

“recently claimed that there “are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today.” In a press conference after his Baghdad tour, McCain told a reporter that his visit to the market today was proof that you could indeed “walk freely” in some areas of Baghdad.

This picture clearly makes his case. The people alongside him (assistants, I guess) seem, um, heavily armed. And that’s a nice flak jacket he’s sporting himself. And I suppose it’s just lucky that Blackhawk helicopters and Apache gunships were patrolling overhead.

Yep, just a stroll in the neighborhood.

Karl Rove gets into the act.

My good friend, actor-writer-director and crank Mark Chaet, has joined the blogosphere.

If “crank” implies a criticism, it shouldn’t. There’s lots to be cranky about. And Mark is a smart, funny, cranky guy.

And, as I noted here, Mark is a famous guy.

A review in today’s LA Times Book Review of “Inside the Music of Brian Wilson: The Songs, Sounds, and Influences of the Beach Boys’ Founding Genius” has me thinking that I love Wilson’s music too much to read an academic dissection of its tonal underpinnings. Musings I would read. A discourse might ruin it forever. In the way that seeing the brain-damaged Wilson “perform” (and I’m using the word generously) “Smile” two summers back almost did.