Don’t Go There! Ugh… too late.

This just in from the Department of Unforced Errors. John McCain’s chief strategist Charlie Black sat down with Fortune Magazine and probably got a wee bit too relaxed when talking about the realities of national defense in relation to the election.

We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy – this according to McCain’s chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.

Two quick observations here and they fall under the categories of stupid and wrong. For the first one, Charlie Black didn’t just fall off the turnip wagon last night. By the time you reach the point in your career where you are advising a major party candidate for the presidency, you just don’t say things like that. When a journalist tosses out an obvious gotcha trap involving a terrorist attack on American soil, you should have a knee-jerk reaction to immediately say how horrible it would be and that John McCain supports aggressive policies to prevent exactly such a scenario from happening. (And then you mention that there hasn’t been such an attack on the homeland since 9/11.)

The second, and more puzzling part, is that Charlie seems to be flat out wrong. There may have been a time circa 2004 when another attack could scare people away from Democrats. Today the landscape has shifted. The Democrats beat the drum constantly saying that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the country less safe, not more. Another attack here at home would likely produce a chorus of cat calls saying, “See? We told you. All this effort and we’re no safer than we were.” So the very concept of such an event actually helping McCain’s campaign is questionable at best.

Whether you agree with Mr. Black’s sentiments or not, though, the bottom line is you simply do not go there. You don’t say that to a reporter under any circumstances. And with one fell slip of the tongue, Charlie Black wins the coveted TMV What Was He Thinking Award for this week.