I'm having a hell of a time parsing Todd Purdum's long profile of John McCain (see my two Tapped posts: 1, 2). The entire piece reads like a litany of McCain's panders and straddles -- but not because Purdum trolled the vote records and the speeches. Instead, McCain, in front of Perdum, cops to it all, asking his aide John Weaver if he'd fixed a gay marriage gaffe or demanding to know if his staff had had their morning glass of ethanol (McCain's a longtime opponent of ethanol subsidies) before touring an ethanol production facility. McCain's not a moron: He knows that Purdum is in the car, and the audience, and the entourage. And he knows that Perdum will write his experience. The only conclusion is that he's unermining his panders purposefully, hoping James Dobson doesn't read Vanity Fair.
Indeed, McCain's done something like this before. In a quote Perdum grabs from McCain's second book, the Senator writes:
By the time I was asked the question for the fourth or fifth time, I could have delivered the response from memory. But I persisted with the theatrics of unfolding the paper and reading it as if I were making a hostage statement. I wanted to telegraph to reporters that I really didn't mean to suggest I supported flying the flag, but political imperatives required a little evasiveness on my part. I wanted them to think me still an honest man, who simply had to cut a corner a little here and there so that I could go on to be an honest president.
I think that made the offense worse. Acknowledging my dishonesty with a wink didn't make it less a lie. It compounded the offense by revealing how willful it had been. You either have the guts to tell the truth or you don't. You don't get any dispensation for lying in a way that suggests your dishonesty.
McCain's not theatrically unfolding a piece of paper, but by letting a national political reporter peer behind the facade and report on his sad, willful pandering, he's trying to accomplish the same thing. He wants the press to know, for savvy politicos to know, that he doesn't mean it. McCain won't govern as he campaigns, and he hates having to campaign this way. Forgive him pundits, for he knows exactly what he does.
