Wednesday, November 5, 2008

McCain, Viagra, and Silence

Don't miss LA Times reporter Maeve Reston's reflections on her ten months of traveling with the McCain campaign.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-maeve28-2008oct28,0,4928107,print.story

In this article she recalls McCain's frankness and accessibility to reporters earlier in 2008, followed by his remoteness and avoidance after she asked an embarrassing question on camera in July.

The question was whether he felt it was unfair for some health insurance companies to cover Viagra but not birth control.

His aides and McCain himself shut off access after that, and she recounts two occasions on which he was cold and even rude to her, though he had earlier been friendly to the point of advising her where to go on her honeymoon.

In retrospect, the human side of his story seems sad. No longer with arm's length of becoming president, he is an old man on his second marriage with cancer and the Grim Reaper shadowing him.

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