It’s been a while since John McCain made the news just for being thoroughly confused about something that nobody has much excuse for being confused about if they aren’t starting to lose their marbles.

That’s probably not because he hasn’t been confused in this manner lately. It’s probably because he’s been keeping a low profile, and is no longer very newsworthy, since he’s no longer running to finish the Bush mission of destroying America’s economy and international prestige.

So let’s just make a copy of this, and file it under both “Long Overdue” and “No Surprise”:

But when he says that there’s no earmarks, I just picked up a bill that we’re going to take up tomorrow, that has 9,247 earmarks in it, in the omnibus appropriations bill. So, what am I supposed to believe here?

That’s McCain complaining about Obama‘s joint-session-of-congress address on Tuesday night.

Steve Benen provides the necessary color commentary:

McCain is confused. When the president talked about the lack of earmarks, he was talking about the economic stimulus bill. In fact, Obama wasn’t vague: “I’m proud that we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks.” The omnibus appropriations bill is a different piece of legislation — a detail McCain is probably aware of — and Obama didn’t (and couldn’t) promise that every spending bill would be earmark-free forevermore. “What am I supposed to believe here?” Reality would be a good place to start.

McCain is now a politician who doesn’t even know how to complain. What possible good is he to man or beast?

(And the Republican party is a political party whose standard-bearers are John McCain, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal and Rush Limbaugh. Just sad.)