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CAMPAIGN TRAIL
WASHINGTON, (CAP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain has become the victim of another ill-timed remark by a former advisor, Carlos Bonilla, who drew fire yesterday for referring to America as "a nation of winos."
"We have sort of become a nation of winos," Bonilla, a former special assistant to the president for economic policy, told the Washington Times. "It's very hard to get your policies across when the whole country is tanked on cheap vino."
Bonilla then admitted that he had in fact polished off several bottles of inexpensive muscatel immediately before the interview.
McCain immediately distanced himself from Bonilla, whom he'd asked to leave the campaign last month when it was revealed that Bonilla was among the White House officials who'd received free tickets from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"Carlos Bonilla does not speak for me. In fact, the guy is usually slurring his words so badly you can't tell who he's speaking for," said McCain. "But my friends, even if Mr. Bonilla and Mr. Abramoff are prone to sousing themselves on $2 Charles Shaw Cabernet, and I'm pretty sure that they are, I do not believe they represent the bulk of the American people.
"And even if they do, it is the right of every American to drink as much wine as he or she wants, no matter how skunky," he said.
McCain also took the opportunity to vow to try to block the takeover of Anheuser-Busch by Belgian company InBev. "We may love those Budweiser frogs, but not if the frogs have a French accent!" he declared.
When reminded by reporters that France and Belgium are actually different countries, he took a long swig of Foxhorn White Zinfandel directly from the bottle.
McCain's Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, meanwhile, pledged to continue to drink Budweiser whether it is French or Belgian, without any pre-conditions. "Although I actually prefer a nice, smooth sidecar martini," he noted.
The American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) has also come out to contradict Bonilla's assertions. It released the results of a study today that showed fewer than half of the country's wine drinkers consume entire bottles of "cheap" (less than $10) wine in one sitting, and only 40 percent of those do so without removing the bottle from the paper bag.
Bonilla, for his part, has tried to defend his original remarks, at first noting that America has a fine history of "beloved winos," including Otis from The Andy Griffith Show and Barney from The Simpsons. Then he just broke down crying, saying, "Damn that Abramoff! All this for those stupid tickets - and Wayne Newton can't even really sing any more!" Then he let loose a large belch and curled up in the corner to sleep it off.
The incident comes in the wake of controversial comments by another McCain advisor, former Sen. Phil Gramm, who said that the U.S. had become a nation of whiners. Gramm has since claimed he was misquoted, and that he'd actually said it was "a nation of Shriners."
"And what's with those stupid little hats, anyway?" Gramm asked.
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