You probably haven't seen the video of Sen. John McCain, but it exists. On Aug. 14, in front of 800 people at the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit think tank, McCain made a confession worth noting.
McCain, an invited speaker, had held forth for over an hour on the global economy, when the Institute's director and program moderator, Walter Isaacson, asked the senator a question that seemed a little silly.
The Republican presidential candidate had recently given an interview to Blender magazine in which he admitted to an affection for the Swedish pop-group ABBA. "What were you thinking? Isaacson asked. The audience roared.
McCain laughed, too, and acquitted himself affably by shrugging his shoulders and channeling his inner Tony Soprano. "Huh? I mean, really. Seriously. Huh?"
Reporters from CNN and The Denver Post treated McCain's ABBA moment as a humorous footnote to the day. Russia had just invaded the breakaway province of Georgia and most of the discussion had centered around that.
But McCain's comment about ABBA - and the confession that followed - were anything but trivial.