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McCain refers to "the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border."

Is that a horribly embarrassingly revelation of ignorance or what the language experts recognize as "the common type of speech error that replaces an intended word with another that is semantically close and contextually relevant"?

Must we be principled about this? Can't we just mock the people we don't like when they make a gaffe?

ADDED: Politico says:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said ?Iraq? on Monday when he apparently meant ?Afghanistan?, adding to a string of mixed-up word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition.

Just in the past three weeks, McCain has also mistaken "Somalia" for "Sudan," and even football?s Green Bay Packers for the Pittsburgh Steelers....

The McCain campaign says Obama has had plenty of flubs of his own, including a reference to "57 states" and a string of misstated place names during the primaries that Republicans gleefully sent around as YouTube links.

The problem with McCain's gaffes is that they augment fears that he is too old for the job. Obama's gaffes resonate with concerns we have about him too, but they are different concerns, and they are not as hard to overcome as McCain's age.

Full post as published by Althouse on July 22, 2008 (boomark / email).