Are You Ready for Some "Straight Talk"?

Anytime that John McCain is ready to provide his patented form of straight talk, I suppose it would only be polite to listen to it. But despite the hype for candor that usually accompanies the senator, at best he runs hot and cold. Are his statements more trustworthy when they're self-deprecating? Perhaps so.

For more than a little while, he's been downplayed his economics bona fides. Earlier this week, it was reported that he surprised The Wall Street Journal editorial board when he came for a recent interview with former senator Phil Gramm in tow. Gramm joined the McCain campaign last summer to help with economic issues. Sam Stein wrote: "'People around the table were sort of taken back,' said the source. 'They thought McCain would have better answers.'" Last month, he joked about his unpreparedness on the economy. "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book." As Greenspan's tenure reveals itself to be more and more ineffective in keeping the economy on an even keel through both the dot-com and the housing bubbles, perhaps his biography isn't the best tool for devising financial policy. But claiming that he's weak on economic theory isn't a new development for McCain. A couple of years back, another interview appeared in The Wall Street Journal. He trotted out his by-now-familiar line, which interviewer Stephen Moore called "refreshingly blunt": "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." He also said he depended on Phil Gramm for advice, and Moore suggested that Gramm would "almost certainly" be appointed secretary of the Treasury under McCain.

So if McCain's been willing to expose his shortcomings on economics, what's the problem? Well, now that the economy seems like it will play an outsize role in the remainder of the campaign, such admissions are not quite as strategically helpful. During Thursday's debate, Tim Russert, who always enjoys paying a fun game of Gotcha with politicians, dredged up the older Wall Street Journal quote. But instead of admitting his shortcomings, McCain indulged in a different kind of "straight talk": "I don't know where you got that quote from. I'm very well versed in economics." Talking Points Memo has the video. For some reason, Russert didn't continue his gotcha ways and simply dropped the ball--I mean, point. Maybe he was caught flat-footed by McCain's outright denial of his own quote. If I'd been Russert, I'd have expected McCain to try to finesse the issue or sidestep it, not completely lie about it. Of course, if I'd been Russert, McCain's answer would've just got my back up and I would've pressed it further. Of course, I've never been charmed on the back of the Straight Talk Express. When it comes to McCain, perhaps that's primarily the point where I differ with the liberal media.