By James Gordon Meek in the New York Daily News‘ ‘Mouth of the Potomac’ blog, posted on Feb. 5:

[John McCain] returned this morning to reminding voters of last week’s horrific bombing in Iraq last week, in which two mentally-retarded women blew themselves up in two Baghdad markets, killing scores of civilians in a Shi’a neighborhood.

“They had no idea what they were doing,” McCain said yesterday in a Hamilton, N.J., firehouse. “My friends, that’s incomprehensible evil. It’s the kind of evil we must defeat and we will never surrender, we will never surrender.” …

As a campaign gut check, I queried the U.S. military about the incident. Here’s the latest from Army Lt. Col. Steve Stover of the 4th Infantry Division:

“Based on our division surgeon’s assessment the two women have facial features indicative of Down’s syndrome. We believe the two women to have a reduced mental capacity and were likely not willing participants. We also believe both the suicide vest and backpack, which contained 10mm ball bearings, were remotely detonated. Both women looked to be in their 20’s to 30’s and could have been related. My personal opinion, this was the act of a sick, twisted, and evil mind - the target being the Iraqi people and the victims including the two unwitting participants.”

McCain’s political director Mike Dennehy has a 6-year-old son with Down syndrome.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Down syndrome, politics, violence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post