Could it be that there are finally cracks starting to show in the lovefest that the media has had with John McCain this campaign cycle? Not one, but two NY Times columnists have written about how little we know McCain, and his true nature.
We have a monumental double standard here. Mr. McCain has had trouble in his public comments distinguishing Sunnis from Shiites and had to be corrected in one stunningly embarrassing moment by his good friend Joe Lieberman. He has referred to a Iraq-Pakistan border when the two countries do not share a border. … My guess is that most voters don’t see John McCain as an angry candidate, despite several very public lapses. The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy. Barack Obama is not the only candidate the voters need to know more about.
Mr. McCain could also have stepped into the leadership gap left by Mr. Bush’s de facto abdication. His inability to even make a stab at doing so is troubling. While drama-queen commentators on television last week were busy building up false suspense about the Obama trip — will he make a world-class gaffe? will he have too large an audience in Germany? — few focused on the alarms that Mr. McCain’s behavior at home raise about his fitness to be president.
It’s sad to say, however, that this might be as close as we come to a real examination by the mainstream media of McCain’s shortcomings from his short temper to his inability to get his facts straight. There is little desire by the mainstream media to delve into it at any depth. I guess the food at his media barbeques is just that good.
