McCain campaign manager was for McCain’s record before he was against it

Of all the various interviews on the Sunday morning shows, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ appearance on “Fox News Sunday” was likely to be the least interesting. The head of the Republican campaign on the Republican network? Not exactly must-see TV.

But FNC’s Chris Wallace was actually at the top of his game yesterday, and raised hard-hitting questions that left Davis looking unusually bad.

Take this exchange, for example:

There was no doubt the McCain gang was inviting this; I’m just surprised someone in the media was willing to bring it up. McCain’s new ad says the nation is worse off now than it was four years ago, but as Wallace noted, McCain, as recently as a year ago, was voting with the Bush line 95% of the time. Given this, shouldn’t McCain bear some of the responsibility?

“Well, look, if you want to talk about history, then you can make all of the cases you want to make,” Davis responded. He added that McCain has been a maverick and “the biggest irritant” to the Bush administration. I haven’t the foggiest idea what that means — if McCain votes with Bush 95% of the time, then he obviously isn’t an irritant or a maverick; he’s the opposite of an irritant or a maverick.

“But I’ve got to come back at you,” Wallace said. “If you say the country is worse off than it was four years ago, clearly the president has got to bear some of the responsibility, and by his own record, his own admission, John McCain voted with the president, last year, 95% of the time.”

Point, set, match. Davis said something about those votes not mattering too much, but it was too late — Wallace had already destroyed the McCain campaign’s claim.



There was more, too. Here’s Davis struggling to explain his lobbying role in the DHL deal in Ohio:

And here’s Davis struggling to explain why Dick Cheney is speaking at the Republican convention.

“You’ll never find John McCain changing his stripes just because of an election,” Davis said.

Um, Rick? I’m going to assume you haven’t seen my list….

Nevertheless, kudos to Wallace for hosting a hard-hitting interview. As Mark Kleiman noted, “I guess [Davis] wasn’t expecting L’Osservatore Romano to criticize the Pope. I’m hoping this will give reporters at non-Republican networks license to ask some of the same tough questions.”

I’m hoping the same.