Says McCain would provoke new wars, 'he's in everybody's face'

"More wars" could prove to be the oddest of all presidential campaign slogans. Especially if it works.

Presidential candidate John McCain shocked observers on Sunday when he told a crowd of supporters, "There's going to be other wars. ... I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars."

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough asked old-line conservative Pat Buchanan about McCain's remarks, saying, "He talked about promising that more wars were coming. ... Is he so desperate to get off the economic issue?"

Pat Buchanan replied that McCain never used the word "promise" but simply said there would be more wars, and that from McCain's point of view, "that is straight talk. ... You get John McCain in the White House, and I do believe we will be at war with Iran."

"That's one of the things that makes me very nervous about him," Buchanan went on. "There's no doubt John McCain is going to be a war president. ... His whole career is wrapped up in the military, national security. He's in Putin's face, he's threatening the Iranians, we're going to be in Iraq a hundred years."

"So when he says more war," Scarborough commented, "he is promising you, if he gets in the White House, we'll not only be fighting this war but starting new wars. Is that what conservative Republicans want?

"I don't say he's starting them," Buchanan answered. "He expects more wars. ... I think he's talking straight, because if you take a look at the McCain foreign policy, he is in everybody's face. Did you see Thad Cochran's comment when he endorsed Romney? He said, look, John McCain is a bellicose, red-faced, angry guy, who constantly explodes."

"Not a happy message," commented Scarborough. "Not Reaganesque."


This video is from MSNBC News Live, broadcast January 28, 2008