This is certainly not good news for John McCain. At a time when his opponents are beating each other into the ground, McCain has made an unforced error that will draw attention away from the Democrats civil war.

McCain gave a foreign policy speech yesterday that is a little too close for comfort to one given by Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer in 1996.

Blue Mass Group has the links from Think Progress who broke the story. Check it out for yourself.

UPDATE: Well, that was the shortest political scandal in history. Think Progress has posted the following correction on its web site,

It appears that Ziemer’s speech may have been plagiarized from McCain. According to the McCain campaign, the senator used these lines before Ziemer — in 1995. We regret the error.

I’m sure they do.:)