So why isn't it a huge gigantic big deal that a presidential candidate running on a national security platform doesn't understand the difference between Iran and Al-Qaeda? On the Times op-ed page today, Neal Gabler suggests that John McCain's store of goodwill with the media stems from his own sense of cynicism and irony, traits journalists revere. "They are reacting to something deeper than politics. They are reacting to his vision of how the world operates and to his attitude about it, something it is easy to suspect he acquired while a prisoner of war," Gabler writes. He continues, "The candidates who are dead serious about politics, even wonkish, get abused by the press for it. Mr. McCain the ironist gets heaps of affection." I'd add that, like John McCain, most members of the campaign press corps just aren't all that interested in or knowledgeable about public policy. Most cover politics, as it's so often been noted, as a sport. How else to explain lines like this one, from Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei's much-lauded Politico piece on the press' complicity with Hillary Clinton's claim that she can still win the nomination without deeply dividing the Democratic Party: "That’s certainly possible — and, to be clear, we’d love to see the race last that long — but it’s folly to write about this as if it is likely." The press would love to see the race last until the convention. That's not because they're fascinated by the debate over health insurance mandates. It's because it's fun and dramatic, like a basketball game going into overtime. Gabler argues that when McCain ran for president in 2000, he was lauded for shooting the same "straight talk" off the bus as on it, while this year, journos just feel so special that they're getting the "real" McCain while voters hear pablum about conservatism. In actuality, McCain has always been a flip-flopper who uses the media to do his bidding. Here's what Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote about McCain during the 2000 race: "McCain's people whisper, Don't worry. He's not really so anti-abortion. He'll come around on gay rights, gun control and almost anything else you can name. He's a reasonable man--big-hearted, too." That's the same McCain who now opposes Roe v. Wade, marriage equality, comprehensive sex-ed, and doesn't believe condoms prevent the spread of HIV. So if we journalists value skepticism and cynicism so much, we should really be applying some to John McCain. --Dana Goldstein