John McCain & the media: There's "little else to ask" him

With only six months until the presidential election, what could be more informative than a report on the campaign styles of John McCain verus Barack Obama? Why talk about issues when, "mannerisms on the trail can provide insights into how one could behave in office"? Spontaneous and accessible or disciplined and remote, witty and quick or a gifted orator...inquiring minds want to know. But instead of dissecting this drivel du jour, let's focus on a bit of unintended comedy from this Associated Press article by Liz Sidoti:

After events, McCain almost always takes media questions. Then, it's back to his bus, where McCain parks himself in a leather captain's chair with a scrum of reporters squeezed in around him, balancing their tape recorders on his knees. He'll spend hours talking with them about anything, sometimes leaving reporters with little else to ask and the candidate pushing: "What else? What else?"

Well, sure. We've all seen how merciless the media scrutiny of McCain has been. Few candidates could have withstood the beating he took over the question of whether he's a straight talker or the straightest talker.

But the next time Ms. Sidoti and the rest of McCain's adoring scrum run out questions about how much of a maverick he really is, perhaps they could ask him about how many years he is willing to let U.S. soldiers die in Iraq, whether he is so gung-ho for war with Iran that he's willing to lie or if he really just doesn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, how he can be the anti-lobbyist candidate while lobbyists run his campaign, which views he shares with John Hagee and Rod Parsley, when his wife is going to release her tax returns, which big contributor besides Donald Diamond has he done favors for, how long will he continue to break finance election laws...or they could just head back to his "cabin" for another barbeque.