Hm. So here’s John McCain saying that, no no no, we shouldn’t read anything at all into his little gaffe about Iran arming Teh Most Nefarious Terrorists of Ever, al Qaeda:

Asked if it’s “a fair question” to wonder if it was more than “simply a slip of a tongue,” McCain replied that “to think that I would have some lack of knowledge about Sunni and Shia after my eigth visit and my deep involvement in this issue is a bit ludicrous.”

Yes, it is indeed ludicrous - isn’t it?

But as ThinkProgress notes, elsewhere in the interview McCain played the old GOP word association game:

While NBC aired only a snippet of O’Donnell’s interview, in the full video, which is posted online, McCain also played the common conservative game of using “intentionally deceptive language” to blur “the differences between groups with different goals and ideologies in order to create the illusion of a united Islamofascist enemy”:

Al Qaeda is military. Al Qaeda is killing Americans as we speak. Islamic extremists are being trained in Iran and they are being sent back into Iran, I mean into Iraq.

Your average right-winger absolutely, positively believes in a united Islamofascist enemy. McCain’s “gaffe” specifically reinforced that.

But, you know, he’s sorry.

So long as it helps, he can afford to be.