McCain gives a petulant interview to Time Magazine. Boy, was it a doozy. But more importantly, what more does it actually reveal?
If you haven't yet, read Christopher Morris’ incredibly revealing interview of an increasingly petulant and unhinged McCain in Time Magazine.
McCain was once the darling of the journalists for giving long, unscripted, off-the-cuff interviews.
Explains Morris:
For years, John McCain's marathon bull sessions with reporters were more than a means of delivering a message; they were the message. McCain proudly, flagrantly refused direction from handlers, rarely dodged tough questions and considered those who did wimps and frauds.
But something changed this summer. According to Joe Klein:
The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign's war against the press. This has been building for some time. Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year.
McCain had his jetliner specially outfitted with a comfy couch in the front for some "Straight Talk Express" interviews but it has been barely used during the campaign.
But last week, last Thursday to be specific, McCain gave an interview to Christopher Morris of Time Magazine. And boy, was it a doozy.
The interview starts out okay.
What do you want voters to know coming out of the Republican Convention — about you, about your candidacy?
To which McCain gave the remarkably wooden response:
I'm prepared to be President of the United States, and I'll put my country first.
Eventually the interview devolves into such a state that Morris is forced to try and defuse the situation by exclaiming:
Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.]
What's curious is that, really, the questions are fairly on-target softballs at McCain. ("I wonder if you could define honor for us." or "A lot of people know about your service from your books, but most people don't know that you have two sons currently in the military. Can you describe what it means to have Jack and Jimmy in uniform?") Easy pitches to hit, one would think.
But no, McCain was in no mood to hit at anything except the press.
Adds Klein:
McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he's ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field...any intimations that he's gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable.
The interview was done last week, on Thursday, the day of Obama’s DNC speech. You will recall that was the time when McCain had made his VP decision, but it was not yet public. From most accounts from most observers, it seems that he wanted to pick Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge but was vetoed by his campaign director Steve Schmidt, protege of Karl Rove and Co.
The first time McCain was smacked down by the Rovian Gang was in South Carolina 8 years ago. But now, on a plane, on a barely-used straight talk couch, speaking to Time he knew that it had happened again. I have no doubt that McCain had bought into his own hype that he was a maverick, that he was a reformer, that he spoke truth to power. But at that point, when the big test had arrived, he realized that he had backed down and cast his lot with the Rovians. He had now placed his cynical and gimmacky campaign first and he had become One of Them.
When asked by Morris to define honor, McCain said simply...
I’m not going to define it.