McCain's a Mystery Even to Himself

He's fuzzy on number of houses, unreliable as his own spokeman

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 22, 2008 12:10 PM CDT

(Newser) – A mystery called John McCain lurks at the heart of the presidential race, Eugene Robinson writes in the Washington Post. The candidate remains "undefined" and "full of contradictions," Robinson writes. In fact, with McCain's bizarre admission that he isn't sure how many houses he has, "there are some basic things about McCain that apparently even McCain doesn't know."

On the economy, McCain's own campaign advises voters to pay more attention to the authorized version instead of the candidate's pronouncements, suggesting he is unreliable even as "a spokesman for himself," Robinson writes. "It's true that John McCain has been around a long time. But do we really know what he'd do as president? Do we really know who he is?"

[Images (3)]

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John McCain, left, and and his wife Cindy wave as they board their plane, Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008, in Long Beach, Calif. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

John McCain smiles during a town hall meeting, Wednesday, Aug. 20,2008, at the Pan American Center on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, N.M. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

John McCain. gestures during a town hall meeting, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, at the Pan American Center on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, N.M. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

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What alarms me is the pattern of inconsistency. One day he's soothing, the next he's abrasive. One day the buck stops here, the next he's not authorized to speak for, ahem, himself. - Eugene Robinson

It's a stretch, to say the least, for McCain to portray himself as a Regular Joe while painting Barack Obama as some kind of jet-set celebrity. - Eugene Robinson

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McCain's a Mystery Even to Himself