MSNBC's John Ridley Sees Conspiracy in McCain Colombia Presence

You've heard of Bush Derangement Syndrome, now it seems as though McCain Derangement Syndrome is starting to appear.

As you might expect, the first outbreak was on MSNBC where liberal commentator and screenwriter John Ridley wondered whether McCain's coincidental presence in Colombia during the recent daring hostage rescue was really a publicity ploy:

"We know that John McCain was down there fortuitously. We know that someone on his staff who was a lobbyist for Colombia. It just seems all very convenient right before the Fourth of July.We know that John McCain was down there fortuitously. We know that someone on his staff who was a lobbyist for Colombia. It just seems all very convenient right before the Fourth of July."

Transcript excerpt from the July 3 edition of "Morning Joe:"

JOHN RIDLEY: So McCain just decided he wanted to be in Colombia -- very fortuitous on this day that this amazing, amazing rescue happened. Even his own handlers don't exactly know why he wants to go.

PAT BUCHANAN: Suppose those guys had gone in there and the rebels had suspected something and they shot them up and killed a number of hostages and it was a bloody mess and McCain would have been blamed for it. He couldn't have known it was going to succeed.

RIDLEY: Unless they knew that it was not going to be a failure. That's all I'm saying.

BUCHANAN: You're implying that they bought off the rebels?

RIDLEY: All I'm saying is that we see what happens in Iraq, that we're not going to negotiate with terrorists, that we're not going to negotiate with these kidnappers, and then for some reason they're released. I want to make very clear, these people come home, these individuals been kidnapped, I couldn't be happier. However they get home. But we know that back channel negotiations and things happen. We know that John McCain was down there fortuitously. We know that someone on his staff who was a lobbyist for Colombia. It just seems all very convenient right before the Fourth of July.

Yes, that's it exactly. Because we all know that John McCain was borrowing Karl Rove's mind reader machine and he discovered the operation would be successful because of course being there if the rescue screws up would've been marvelous publicity.