Come To Papa.

(Mouse over image to play video if "play arrow" isn't visible.)

The Republicans are kings of just one thing, and that is sloganeering and imagery which panders to the lowest common denominator:

Cut & run.

Liberal media.

Country First.

Drill, baby, drill.

The flag pin.

Gotcha journalism.

That last bit of media paranoia has become the latest desperate McCain mantra, even when used--as in the clip above--to bitch about press coverage of a question from a voter.

That's news, simply because the McCain campaign shields Palin from live questions far better than Bristol shielded herself from Levi.  

To hear Papa John McCain and Sarah Palin tell it, everything wrong with their campaign is the media's fault.

This is standard-issue, GOP boilerplate bullshit.

Remember Spiro Agnew?

Remember his "nattering nabobs of negatism"?

That anti-media screed was written by Nixon/Agnew speechwriter William Safire, who joined the New York Times as a columnist after that dirty dance with darkness.  

  

Agnew also called the press corps "an effete corps of impudent snobs", which might be the words John McCain is hearing in his head when you see that late-night, creepy movie smile cross his face. 

These latest attacks on the free press are nothing new for a GOP  good ol' boy like John McCain, even though he once courted the press like he hit on Cindy during his first marriage. 

Meanwhile, "L'il Maverick" is being coached to mimic every single word, and is, of course, no maverick at all.

Just like Papa.