McCain On The Run: Cancels Press Availability

Marc Ambinder reports that John McCain's one press conference of the week has been abruptly canceled:

The one scheduled McCain press conference of the week has just been canceled, we are told. No word as to why. Grumble, grumble.

Why? Scheduling. Which is like answering "food" to "what did you eat for breakfast."

Ambinder offers a relatively innocuous explanation:

My bet is that the campaign much prefers local and regional interviews. Us national press folks will ask qualitatively different questions -- McCain v. the press, McCain v. history, McCain v. Obamania... The priority here in northern Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional district is on getting good local news coverage.

But Ben Smith sees more, pointing out that Obamania is the least of McCain's worries right now:

Despite the press crowd around Obama, McCain's avail today was the one with more promise to make news:

He hasn't explained what he meant by juggling the timeline on the surge and Awakening (though his staff did the best salvage job possible); whether he meant that Obama was deliberately selling out the country; whether he shares his campaign's grievance with the press; or what he thinks of his staff's genocide-themed attack.

And now he's canceled the avail.

Comments

[tlgeiger62]

Maybe he needed to go to Computer practice.

[dentuso]

The Computer training was probably held at Borders. The likelihood of him finding them are not great.

[CocteausTwin]

LMAO

[Kim445588]

Yeah, spend some time with the infomercial guy at the Video professor!

[CtJean]

Oh no - he hasn't passed keyboarding 101 yet

[Sonny James]

What he needs to cancel ... are those debates with Obama.

Get your popcorn ready. LOL!

[neesy08]

what press? there is press still here in america for mccain to speak to?

[gipper1]

When Phil Gramm said we are a nation of whiners, I think he was referring to the GOP.

[BarackstarObama]

Exactly right, they are the whiners, and the American people don't want to hear it. For some reason the word coward comes to mind for McCain.

[TLV]

GOP...as in a great, big, huge GOP of oil.

[apogee2perogee]

Gargantuan Old Prunes

[Kim445588]

Specifically McGaff. A. Lot

[helonias]

So when will he start crying, thats what baffled old geezers usually do next

[Flagal]

wonder if this has anything to do with johnny canceling his photo-op on a gulf coast oil rig:

(CNN) -- The U.S. Coast Guard has closed 29 miles of the Mississippi River from New Orleans southward after a tanker and a barge collided, spilling more than 400,000 gallons of fuel oil into the river.

The river, a major shipping route between the Midwest and Gulf of Mexico, could be closed for days during the cleanup, the Coast Guard said Wednesday.

[dentuso]

I get it. No way to raise gas prices because there wasn't any damage they could claim from the hurricane, so they had to create some.

[volum]

I made a special new McCain campaign poster to mark this terrific day:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28873980@N03/2696192699/

[Flagal]

i think the jist of it is that johnny has been claiming how safe it is to drill and ship the oil.

one of his surrogates was bragging last week that during katrina not a drop of oil was spilled. then she was reminded that 16 million gallons was spilled form the hurricane.
basically she said "my bad" i havent heard or read another word about this monumental lie by one of his surrogates.

[humuhumunukunukuapuaa]

He must be mourning the tragic loss of oil...

[The 13 Colonies]

He's mourning the fact that every time he opens his mouth, he puts his FOOT in it....................

[Chillinout]

All this means is that we are going to have to drill offshore and in ANWR to replace all that oil that was spilled.

[MalleusMaleficarum]

The simple truth: McCain is politically apoplectic, and he may be suffering the equivalent of a politically triggered stroke. With McCain's leader, President George Bush, now responding to Barack Obama's every whim vis a vis negotiations with nations hitherto regarded as members of the Axis of Evil and now supporting the concept of a - Heaven, Forbid! and Zoot alors! - 'time horizon' for US troop withdrawal from Iraq -- McCain is left out in the cold to twist slowly, slowly in the wind. Rumors in DC are now rife that Romney has backed out of the VP deal -- and taking his megabucks with him. Why should Romney continue to support a rather -- shall we say -- compromised candidate who is already a virtual loser?

[aristippe]

Romney can't get McCain the evagelicals so he's not gonna get the spot

[AnnieinOR]

Mc you have been whining all week that O gets all the media love - now that they show you some, you don't want to go on the date? talk about a tease.

[Ariadne]

LOL

[Flagal]

just read on yahoo news that johnny says he didn't misspeak about the surge. he said that the surge started before boooosh announced it in jan. even though the 30000 troops didn't arrive until feb.
is anyone going to call him on all his di-sgu-sting li-es?
this is getting ridiculous

[LMT]

Oh...yeah...of course! Now it makes perfect sense.

[dentuso]

Tomorrow he'll correct those misstatements by arguing that he'd actually started arguing for the surge during Clin ton's first term.

[Quixotic2]

The reason he won't talk to the press is simple. When you've dug yourself into a deep hole, stop digging.

[NochlessMonster]

Why? Did he finally reach China?

[highlyamused]

Ahhhh and the day after the CBS/Couric fiasco. Coincidence.........probably not.

[AMJordan]

"But I AM a serious journalist!" (Foot stamp)

Signed,

Katie Couric

[roshni]

She has not been taken to task for her dishonest editing.

[LMT]

She got that job, at least indirectly, due to the fact that Dan Rather and his minions falsified news about W's military service. Dan Rather was fired.

Seems like our little Katie should now get the boot as well!

[dentuso]

"But are you willing to admit that the surge decreased violence?"

"There's no question it played a part in the decrease in violence, along with -"

"But are you willing to admit that the surge decreased violence?"

"As I said, the work of the troops did contribute to the decrease in violence"

"So you're saying the surge didn't work?"

"As I f&^$ing said THREE times.... "

If nothing else, O has more patience than I could possibly show with these idiots.

[tressie22]

I continue to marvel at the man's patience, too. Culturally speaking, it's not a strong suit. LOL So, more power to him. Every time I watch him I'm reminded why he is where he is and I am where I am. I wouldn't have lasted long enough to punch Katie in her painted on mouth. I'da been toast after tripping HRC on the campaign trail to get in a good left jab to Stephanie Tubbs Jones in those monstrous gums of hers. Again, I'm not cut out for this line of work.

[johnwinner]

Breaking news (AP): McCain now says that his misstatement on the Surge timeline was not a misstatement, since the Surge was underway before the Surge began. (Not kidding, folks). Pro-McCain propaganda service says McCain suggests it's all a matter of semantics (AP's way of suggesting that it's all a matter of semantics).
NOTE TO MCCAIN and AP: History is not a matter of semantics.

[HarryTheHat]

From The Associated Fournier:

McCain asserted he he didn't commit a gaffe. "A surge is really a counterinsurgency made up of a number of components. ... I'm not sure people understand that 'surge' is part of a counterinsurgency."

And sure enough, check this out: counter-in-surge-ncy. Surge IS part of counterinsurgency.

This guy is cunning like a fox. Sharp like a knife. Underestimate him at your peril.

[gditty]

So McCain is going to NOLA tomorrow to do an event to tout off-shore oil drilling, flying out to a rig on a helicopter, trying to be all Jack Bauer the oil man. His agenda: demonstrate how easy, safe, and important more offshore drilling is.

But there's a problem: today, on the eve of this stunt, there was a huge oil spill in NOLA....a 600-foot tanker and a barge loaded with fuel oil collided Wednesday, breaking the barge in half, more than 419,000 gallons of heavy, almost tar-like fuel oil spilled from the barge, forming a slick 12 miles long, said Lt. Cdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.

For those of you looking to attend this event.....It was canceled, he's going to Ohio instead.

[Egalitare]

Oops. So much for that photo-op.

Does that mean he's stiffing Jindal, too? Or is "Father Merrin" going to Ohio as well?

[kkuate]

John McCain can't face and take-on the press wimps.

Here's someone who pretends to be prepared to be president of America, and lead the free world, but some wimpy "Katie Courics" put him on the run - - -that's funny.