John McCain: Pentagon press secretary is an ‘idiot’

Sen. John McCain said the Pentagon press secretary was hardly forthcoming or clear with his recent assessment of the U.S.-led air assault against the Islamic State — and in fact sounded rather idiotic.

Bluntly, Mr. McCain called Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby an “idiot” for his incoherent statement, he said, during a broadcast interview on the “Tyler Cralle Show.”

“The spin and lies out of this White House, I mean, it’s unbelievable,” Mr. McCain said, Newsmax reported. “This idiot Admiral Kirby was asked … ’John McCain says that we are losing, what do you say?’ The guy, you got to run it, you got to run it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, I mean, it’s amazing.”

Adm. Kirby was asked about Mr. McCain’s view that the Islamic State was winning and said: “Well, I’m not going to — I would just tell you that we believe that — let me put it this way. It’s going to be a long fight. It’s going to be difficult. There’s going to be setbacks. There’s going to be wins, and there’s going to be losses,” Newsmax reported.

BuzzFeed posted a transcript of Adm. Kirby’s statement that included more rambling.

“The — we’re mindful of the complicated nature of this. And we’re also very mindful of the fact that — and I’ve said it before — military power, military action is not going to be decisive in and or itself. It’s just not going to work that way,” Newsmax reported. “But the situation changes every day. … We are — we believe — and we’ve said it before — that we’re in this — we all need to be in this for a matter of years, and for us after just a couple of months going at it … to make a decisive, you know, statement that we’re winning or losing — well, I can tell you is that there are — there are areas where we are having success.”

Adm. Kirby went on for a little bit longer, in a similarly rambling fashion, finally wrapping by calling the U.S. situation with the Islamic State a “mixed situation” and a “mixed picture,” Newsmax reported.