This story should go in the file titled, “When are they ever going to learn?” There is a reason why politicians don’t work the local comedy clubs. It is because the vast majority of politicos are about as funny as getting out of bed in the dark, tripping over your dog, and stubbing your toe. When politicians try to be funny, bad things usually happen. When presidential candidates try to be funny, the results are often disastrous. The latest example of this is John McCain.

While campaigning in South Carolina Sen. McCain was asked a question about when the U.S. was going to send an “airmail message” to Tehran. Now McCain was campaigning in front of a bunch of fellow vets, so he probably felt more relaxed when he gave an answer that parodied the Beach Boys song Barbara Ann. You can watch McCain’s comments right here What McCain said was pretty stupid, especially for a candidate who is falling like a rock, due to already supporting one unpopular war.

Then just to make things a little more fun, MoveOn.org released an ad that calls McCain reckless, because of his bomb Iran comments. The organization is going to spend $100,000 to run the aid in New Hampshire and Iowa. You can check out the MoveOn ad here. Yesterday in Nevada, McCain defended the joke. “Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends,” he told reporters in Las Vegas. “My response is, Lighten up and get a life.” When asked if the joke was insensitive, McCain said, “Insensitive to what? The Iranians?” Presidential candidates who are running for office during a time of war can’t joke about bombing other nations.

The reality is that the U.S. military is stretched too thin, and we can’t afford to start a conflict with Iran by dropping bombs on them, and McCain’s comments were insensitive. I personally could never vote for a candidate who values human life so little. I’ll bet that the Iranians took his joke seriously, and being that they are one of the factors behind the instability in Iraq, it would be a real shame of more American soldiers ended up dead, because McCain tried to be funny. If McCain was not running for president, nobody would care, but he is running for president and he needs to be more careful. To me, this is just another hole in the sinking ship of the McCain ’08 campaign.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I am not a member of MoveOn, because I feel that they pretend to be something that they aren’t. They pretend to be a liberal grass roots organization, but what they really are is a political action committee. Members of MoveOn are constantly hit up for money. It is bad enough that our current political system causes candidates to perpetually beg for cash. I am already overwhelmed, and I don’t need to deal with MoveOn having their hand out too. I wish they would take the hundred grand that they are going to waste on the McCain ad, and spend it on voter registration. This is a group that over time seems to fancy themselves as big time player in the Democratic Party, but yet, they can’t seem to finance a winning candidate to save their lives.

The McCain quotes came from here.

Jason Easley is the editor of the politics zone at 411mania.com.  His news column The Political Universe appears on Tuesdays and Fridays at www.411mania.com/politics Jason can also be heard every Sunday afternoon at 1:30 pm (ET) as the host of The Political Universe Radio Show at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thepoliticaluniverse