John McCain sounded like a hurt boyfriend on Tuesday.
The Arizona Republican got testy with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta regarding the fact that virtually all U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq at the end of next month. McCain and several other conservatives claim that even though an agreement reached between former President Bush and the Iraqi government three years ago said all of our troops would leave by the end of 2011, that doesn't mean we couldn't have found some way around it.
McCain's comment to Panetta that it didn't matter that Iraq was now a sovereign country, "What about our needs?" reminds one of a classic and edgy Saturday Night Live skit from 1979 featuring Bill Murray.
The skit was called, "First, He Cries, " a parody of a just published memoir written by NBC News reporter Betty Rollin about having a mastectomy. 32 years later, breast cancer is much better known and much more in the public consciousness in this country, but Rollin's memoir was a big deal when it was published in the late 70's.
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2011.