McCain And Iran

Here's a bizarre passage in his speech Tuesday, noted by Hilzoy:

Many believe all we need to do to end the nuclear programs of hostile governments is have our president talk with leaders in Pyongyang and Tehran, as if we haven't tried talking to these governments repeatedly over the past two decades.

I was unaware that successive US administrations have been negotiating with Iran's government "repeatedly over the past two decades." As Hilzoy notes, the blogosphere was incandescent with fluster over Obama's trivial confusion of Auschwitz and Buchenwald in his memory of his family's history. But McCain gets wrong a critical fact about one of the most important issues in foreign policy in front of us - and in a prepared text - and barely anyone peeps.

If Obama had said this, the chorus about his gaffe would be deafening. And people would question whether he knew his stuff. But according to McCain, we've been talking to Tehran repeatedly for two decades. I'm beginning to wonder if he's ready to be president. Will someone in the campaign clarify what he meant?