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I liked the Other Klein's commentary on McCain's tire gauge gaffe:
Oh, so now McCain says it's a good idea to inflate your tires. This is something new: He has taken to attacking Obama on positions where he agrees with Obama. Another example: he flayed Obama for his proposal to withdraw from Iraq, then said it was a "pretty good" timetable. Meanwhile, he also continues to attack Obama for positions Obama hasn't taken or is no longer taking--like Obama's position on offshore drilling, which has become a reluctant yes, in order to get a compromise piece of energy legislation through the Senate. McCain continues to say Obama is opposed. He also says Obama is opposed to nuclear power, which Obama never has been--a position he took some grief about during the Democratic primaries. It's getting hard to keep all of McCain's attacks--and his rules about when it's ok to compromise and when not--straight.For those of you who are new to politics: Obama's position on offshore drilling is what is called a compromise. It is how significant legislation gets passed--which is something that hasn't happened very often lately...The price of governing is ideological impurity. It is a principle John McCain has favored in the past, and may still, except--apparently--when it is done by Obama. But it's hard to tell.The problem for McCain is that the central assertion of his political persona is that he's above politics. His WWF-style catchline -- "It's time for some straight talk, my friends" -- has two points: The first is "straight talk," which implicitly contrasts with the crooked doublespeak you get from other politicians. The second is "my friends," which makes the sentence sound intimate, almost conspiratorial. You don't pull the wool over the eyes of your friends.But his campaign's tire gauge buffoonery is pure politics. There was no disagreement there, no difference of opinion with the Obama campaign. They were just mocking an idea they agreed with in order to gain some votes. They were playing politics. What Klein gets at in his piece is the key problem for McCain: The more McCain pulls this kind of crap, the more he undermines the rationale for his candidacy. "Straight talk" becomes another empty catchphrase, all the more offensive because it once seemed to stand for something. But if McCain doesn't pull this crap, how can he win?
