It appears that Sen. John McCain may be struggling to keep control of that Straight Talk Express, at least when it comes to those folks he’s tossing underneath it. The watchdogs at Media Matters filed a report last week that McCain told Mike Allen of The Politico that he thought it was past time for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to go.
“Out of loyalty to the president, he (Gonzales) should obviously step down,” McCain was quoted as saying in the article. “He’s not serving the president well. I reached that conclusion a long time ago. I just haven’t been asked.”
Except, as Media Matters notes, McCain was asked by The New York Times, New Hampshire’s Union Leader and the Associated Press—and our senior senator either declined to answer or said Gonzales deserved a chance to defend himself before Congress.
Guess it can be hard to keep all the straight talk, well, straight.
More on McCain in this week’s Skinny, coming your way in just days!
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2007.
I am sure you must have seen McCain on the Daily Show last week. I lost count of how many times Jon Stewart and McCain interrupted each other. Stewart called McCain the show’s “most frequent guest,” with something like 8 or 9 visits under his belt. But after last week’s incendiary two-part interview, I wonder if McCain will ever come back. Watch it online and let me know what you think!
I think McCain is trying to simultaneously separate himself from Bush’s unpopularity while reaping all the benefits of the powerful and well-oiled right-wing machine. He and Giuliani have both taken major missteps, and if they’re the GOP front-runners it may very well be the Democrats’ election to lose.