Sticking It To "The Man"

There was a Sprint commercial a while back that portrayed a CEO, grey haired, square jawed and in a pinstripe suit, sitting at his desk in his high rise office, playing with a new phone while one of his lackeys stood to the side.

"Is that a new Sprint phone?" the lackey asked his boss.

"Uh huh. With Sprint's new Fair and Flexible plan, no one can tell me what to do. I can talk when and How I want." The CEO turned to his lackey and sanguinely intoned, "it's my little way of sticking it to "The Man".

His lackey, looking bewildered, blurted out, "but you ARE "The Man".

The CEO stared straight ahead. "I know."

There was something in the absurdity of that exchange that has had me thinking of John McCain more and more these days.

The latest debacle in his logic-defying campaign has swirled around the refusal to allow any reporters to get within recording distance of Sarah Palin, his vice-presidential candidate, as she posed for photos with world leaders in New York today and tomorrow for a United Nations meeting.

CNN pulled the plug on its TV crew after its reporters were barred from attending, leaving the media and the McCain campaign to play a high-level game of cat-and-mouse that has ended with McCain capitulating, agreeing to give a fifteen minute press conference today at 4:00 pm, presumably with Sarah Palin in tow. This will be the first press conference McCain has given since August 13th.

In a lot of ways, McCain's actions over the last thirty days make me wonder when he will have to finally admit, like the CEO did in the commercial, that he is "The Man".