McCain tells offensive Irish joke at Irish-American Event (Here he goes again!)

[NYCGirl]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Not_laughing_at_the_OReilly_twins.html

The mainstream media mostly missed this outrage on Monday, but not the Ancient Order of Hibernians, whose president, Seamus Boyle, is up with a scathing public letter to Senator John McCain for opening his generally well-received stop at an Irish-American event in Scranton with a joke about drunk Irish twins.

From Boyle's letter:

It was a great meeting but when you began your speech with a joke about the Irish, I and many of our fellow Irish Americans in the Ancient Order of Hibernians, were shocked. It was really an insult to a whole nationality to be stereotyped as drunks. The Irish are a jovial people who enjoy life, work hard, help the needy, support our community and our country yet get depicted as drunkards and partiers. As you stated in your speech yesterday the Irish have a great education and work ethic.

Senator, I was not the only one offended and I received numerous complaints from a variety of people throughout Pennsylvania and other parts of the country. On behalf of these people, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and myself and my family, I wish you would refrain from demeaning the Irish or any other ethnic group by telling such jokes in the future. I think an apology is in order to those millions of Irish in the United States who were offended by your joke.

ADDED: Here's a link to an article that tells about the joke:

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/john_mccain_immigration_reform.html

[Essene]

1. amazing...

[PermanentRevolution]

2. He really does take "Open Mouth, Insert Foot" to whole new levels...

[AllieB]

3. Next to Americans of German extraction, Irish lineage is the most common.

He screwed up big time. The Irish (Catholic) vote is usually slightly more Democratic, but there are a lot of anti-choice Irish who vote Republican. The Dems should exploit this.

[ailsagirl]

4. There are SO MANY things to exploit-- where to start??

[treestar]

5. Eh, the Irish aren't offended by Irish jokes

They make them up themselves. McStunt can get away with it because he appears by his name to be a member of the group.

Let's wait until he blows it re another group, which he will, to celebrate his incompetence once again! :rofl:

[ailsagirl]

6. I thought his name was Scottish??

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cronus Protagonist]

23. If you'd ever seen a sheep in Scotland, you wouldn't make that joke

Nasty filthy things.

[treestar]

9. Dunno, I thought if Scottish it would be MacCain, but I could be

wrong.

[DevonRex]

30. There's actually another reason for the Mc and Mac thing.

There's one distinction that I know of and it has to do with highland Scots and lowland Scots.

Highland Scots used Maclean, for example, one word and lower case after the Mac. Lowland Scots tended to use either McLean or MacLean. A highlander would have used Macintosh, a lowlander McIntosh or MacIntosh.

However, this distinction has pretty much disappeared over the years and it's just a mix everywhere. The shortening of Mac to Mc and the subsequent upper case letter had more to do with English influence than anything else.

There's a brief reference to this in the movie "A River Runs Through It." So I looked it up way back then.

[Drunken Irishman]

45. No, Mc is very common in Scottish surnames.

Utah has a large Scottish-American population and there are a lot of Mc-surnames here (McGregor, McKenzie, McKoy, McKay), but none are Irish.

Oddly enough, my surname doesn't start with an O' or a Mc, but it's Irish.

Though originally it did. :P

[Cronus Protagonist]

48. It's pretty well mixed up these days

Scots and Irish do interbreed a lot.... lol :P

[Drunken Irishman]

19. McCain is Scotch-Irish, so not really Irish anyway. ;)

His family is originally from Scotland.

[LisaM]

33. Scotch-Irish are NOT Irish!

They're Protestant land thieves.

[Cronus Protagonist]

40. Besides, Scotch is something most people drink

It's not used in any other context than describing products. Scotch whisky, Scotch tablet, Scotch and soda (ewwwww), Scotch shortbread and so on. Scotch is NEVER used to describe or label people.

[Drunken Irishman]

44. Exactly!

[RichardUK]

25. Scots are Irish decendants

They're all Celts. Doesn't mean they like being stereotyped by a clueless politician though.

[NYCGirl]

12. Well, the Ancient Order of Hibernians didn't seem to be too pleased by it. NT

[sakura]

29. My dad's a longtime member of the "A. O. Haitch" (as my mom calls it)

... and an ardent McCain supporter. I'll have to ask him what he thinks of McCain's little joke. He usually gets really offended by drunk Irishman jokes.

[life long demo]

14. He's Scottish

They probably invited him because of his "pro-life" stance. The Americans of Irish descent have, since the beginning, been aligned with the Democratic party. Abortion has fractured that alliance. But there are still millions of US who believe there is more to being pro-life than abortion. My Grandparents who came from Ireland were Democratic from the get go. And some of us don't like the drunken stereotyping.

[Cronus Protagonist]

27. Um, he's NOT Scottish

Trust me on this. Scottish people do not recognize racial traits as being "Scottish". You have to be born there to be Scottish, period. If yer daddie's Scottish and you were born in Panama, you're PANAMANIAN, as far as most Scottish people are concerned. We look very quizzingly at elderly Americans walking around in mixed Tartan, claiming to be "SCATTISH", and McCain is a perfect example of such an idiot.

[sakura]

32. That's true...

I'm first generation Irish American, and whenever our family went back to visit Ireland, our relatives would refer to us as the "Yanks." Definitely not considered Irish. And most Irish Americans who go to Ireland to retire are considered outsiders. My parents decided against doing so for that reason, although my mom has said that if McCain wins she is out of here. She's absolutely frightened by Palin's religious intolerance-- reminds her of what she grew up with in a border town in Ulster.

[Cronus Protagonist]

39. Yeah, I AM Scottish, and I'm sure I have 99% of the Scottish behind me

We don't want McCain to be able to claim to be Scottish, and if he does, there are damn few among us who would agree with his self-determination.

[sakura]

41. I'm pretty sure no nation wants to claim his as their own at this point! nt

[Cronus Protagonist]

42. werd! :)

n/t

[melody]

35. The reference is not to you at all

We have Scots and Scots-Irish people here in the States. Culture flows with a people -- it doesn't stick to real estate. They have as much right to the words of their ancestors as you do.

I still think McCain is a monster but needed to make the point. I'm very tired of the chauvinistic attitudes that nationals have about their ethnicity. You don't get to declare what it is and what it isn't. That's just as bad as Americans saying "only white people are Americans".

[Patiod]

15. A lot of us can, but people who join groups like that - not so much

My dad is one of those who really hates the jokes

I don't hate the jokes, but I don't like the stereotype - in spite of having a name that is unmistakably Irish, I have never enjoyed the obnoxious, drunken celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Going out for an Irish dinner, or listening to an Irish music - great, but it's impossible to do either or those things without being surrounded by a bunch of drunks, Irish and non-Irish. Yuck.

[On the Road]

8. Oh, It Was This One

Two men were sitting next to each other at a bar. After a while, one guy looks at the other and says, "I can't help but think, from listening to you, that you're from Ireland." The other guy responds proudly, "Yes, that I am!" The first guy says, "So am I! And where about from Ireland might you be?" The other guy answers, "I'm from Dublin, I am." The first guy responds, "Sure and begora, and so am I! And what street did you live on in Dublin?" The other guy says, "A lovely little area it was, I lived on McCleary Street in the old central part of town." The first guy says, "Faith & it's a small world, so did I! And to what school would you have been going?" The first guy gets really excited, and says, "And so did I. Tell me, what year did you graduate?" The other guy answers, "Well, now, I graduated in 1964." The first guy exclaims, "The Good Lord must be smiling down upon us! I can hardly believe our good luck at winding up in the same bar tonight. Can you believe it, I graduated from St. Mary's in 1964 my own self." About this time, another guy walks into the bar, sits down, and orders a beer. The bartender walks over shaking his head & mutters..."It's going to be a long night tonight, the Murphy twins are drunk again."

[nc4bo]

11. My Mccain is an asshole meter just went up a couple notches. nt

[On the Road]

47. I Actually Love That Joke

but you can't just tell it in public if you're campaigning for president.

On Edit: Especially when you're talking to the Hibernians. (smacks head)

Next I expect him to come out with the joke about the two gay Irishmen. That will be popular.

[Overseas]

10. K&R for more of McLame and his dedication to Republicanism-- Country Club First ! /n

[AspenRose]

13. Invite Biden next time

(Duh!)

[rufus dog]

16. As an Irish American I am not offended by Irish Jokes - BUT

This one is so fucking lame! And being delivered in that strange McCain style would make it worse.

So a skinny Irish guy goes into a bar in NYC sits down and orders three Guinness. The bartender thinks it is a bit strange buy pulls the beers. This goes on every day for a week, the bartender and regulars are going crazy trying to figure out why and the bartender finally asks, "why three beers?" The Irish guy explains that he left Dublin and made a pact with his two brothers that he would never drink alone and would always have a beer with both of them. So this routine goes on for years, then one day the Irish guy comes in and orders two Guinness. The bar falls silent and when the bartender delivers the two beers he states, "these are on the house." The Irish guy says thanks and asks why, and the bartender says, well obviously one of your brothers past on. The Irish guy says "heavens no, I just quit drinking."

[FatDave]

17. I totally didn't laugh at that.

I could never laugh at something culturally insensitive, no matter how god-damned funny it may be.

[rufus dog]

24. Are you Irish?

We love our brothers and love our beer!

[FatDave]

31. No, I'm not Irish.

But I do love a good black beer.

[rufus dog]

37. Me too!

So much so that it turned a skinny Irish guy into a chubby Irish guy! No more beers for me until 20 pounds go away! (I may have to sneak a few in on November 4th though, I may have one each for my three brothers, and if it is a landslide I will need three more for my sisters.)

[seabeyond]

20. yawl are just too sensitive. laughing at blacks, gays, women..... just fun

the white male gets to poke at any minority and when they are offended, just simply too sensitive. say a damn thing about a white man, .... and listen to them whine

be offended irish, a quarter here.... be offended. it isnt funny

[KansDem]

21. Well, at least he didn't open with "Bomb, bomb, bomb...bomb, bomb Ireland!" (nt)

[LiberadorHugo]

22. "There you go again", Senator McCain

[CalGator]

26. the joke was kind of McLame

But the more offensive stuff is McCain pretending like he hasn't flip flopped on immigration reform. The guy abandoned his own immigration bill in the Senate because it was unpopular with his own party at a time he was running for his party's nomination.
Some "mavrick".

[BeyondGeography]

28. Hey, John, what do you call an Irish hockey mom who believes in abstinence-only sex education?

McGrandma.

[blondeatlast]

34. "For 5 years, I couldn't offend any group..." TOO STUPID TO BE A WORLD LEADER. Period. nt

[NYCGirl]

38. He should just give up telling jokes. NT

[tomg]

36. Maybe McCain

should have stuck with a more familiar Irish quip. I think the punchline was something about Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.

[pipi_k]

43. oh pooh!!!!!

Come on now...lets' stop the hypocrisy, OK?

If it had been John Kerry telling it, the joke probably would have been hilarious to most people here. Irishman tells Irish joke. Ha ha. The ones to be "offended" by Kerry's telling it likely would have been Irish Republicans

I looked up the origins of McCain's name. One site says it's a derivation of O'Cain and is Gaelic in origin

In any event, I thought the joke was pretty funny even if McCain was the one who told it.


This doesn't even measure up to the "joke" Bush told at that prayer breakfast about the missing WMDs...which shouldn't have been funny no matter what party one belongs to.

[Sodan]

46. Irish

http://uhblog.ulsterheritage.com/2008/01/senator-john-mccain-and-ireland.html