'I should be president!' Daily Show's 'puppet McCain' laments

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has always come off as a bit cranky, but his puppet counterpart on The Daily Show is off the charts.

"McCain stands now less as a paragon of straight talk independence and more as an object lesson as just how f*cking mad people get when they don't get their way," Comedy Central's Jon Stewart noted.

"Today's a very sad day," the Arizona senator said before Congress officially repealed the military's anti-gay policies. "The commandant of United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don't want anything distracting. Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines' lives. I don't want to permit that opportunity to happen and I'll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda hospital there's Marines with no legs, none. We got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs."

"Yeah, but here is this the thing: some of them are gay," Stewart said flatly. "Maybe it would be nice if in exchange for those limbs they could be visited by their significant others without having to refer to them as a college friend or a tennis coach."

"You know McCain's old-man crankiness has gone off the charts," he continued. "On the scale, he's clearly gone from a man of wisdom to full Gran Torino."

"Seeing how easy it is to annoy John McCain now, we'll make it our mission to do so," the Comedy Central host declared.

With all the success The Daily Show had interviewing "puppet Michael Steele," Stewart was pleased to welcome to the show "puppet John McCain."

"The lights are too bright," McCain's counterpart began the interview by complaining. "They burn my skin. You are going to make me look like a Mexican. Build the dang fence. Build it!"

"What has happened to you?" Stewart asked.

"I'm through being nice. You are a first class asshole, Stewart, and you are short, too, dickwad," the puppet version of the Arizona senator replied.

"Really? Dickwad? You know, you've been become truly horrible?" Stewart shot back.

"All you had to do was make me your president but nooooo. 'He's too old. He picked Sarah Palin. He got rid of every principle he held sacred.' I'm sick of your sh*t. So, I got a little something for you," puppet McCain said, holding up a middle finger to the camera.

"Go f*ck yourself, college boy," he said to Stewart. "I should be your president. My father was an admiral. His father was an admiral and I should be president!"

This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast Dec. 16, 2010.