McCain On Art: "I Make No Excuses For My Taste In Music"

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.

Read more on Salt Lake Tribune