McCain Jokes

While writing a not-that-good post that I later deleted, it occurred to me that this is a really crazy headline to see about a major Presidential contender:

McCain jokes about killing Iranians with cigarettes

This is his second joke-like utterance about destroying Iranians, the first being "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran". Matt Yglesias points out that if Ahmadinejad made a comparable joke, like, I don't know, "We will send hamburgers on the wings of glorious angels to kill the Great Satanists where they Eat", it would probably be viewed as evidence that Iran is run by insane people whom you Cannot Meet Unconditionally and Should Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb. Of course, Iran probably has already drawn that conclusion about a McCain administration, and if so they are correct.
But maybe McCain was just trying to create more Conditions. Now if he "meets" the enemy, they will know that they better give him whatever he wants or he will lunge across the table and feebly gnaw at their faces or something. This could (i.e., would certainly) backfire. The Iranians c(w)ould say, "The hell with this, let's just kill any Americans we see before they cigarette our babies to death".
But if it did work, imagine the possibilities: A military industrial complex of weird half-assed jokes about death to enemy civilians. I see Jay Leno as the potential czar of this empire:

Jay: Hey Kev, you hear that the U.S. is putting used land mines in teddy bear exports?
Kevin Eubanks of The Tonight Show Band (stoned): What?
Jay: Probably to kill the North Koreans!
Kev:
Jay: We're killin' some North Koreans (to the tune of "Good
Vibrations")
Kev: What the fuck.

Hell, I'd start watching.