Portrait of an unhappy man, brought to you by TIME

OR:

John McCain and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

An excerpt of his Time interview, 8/28/08 (see the article here or read the full transcript here):

Time: There's a theme that recurs in your books and your speeches, both about putting country first but also about honor. I wonder if you could define honor for us?
JM: Read it in my books.

Time: I've read your books.
JM: No, I'm not going to define it.

Time: But honor in politics?
JM: I defined it in five books. Read my books.

Time: [Your] campaign today is more disciplined, more traditional, more aggressive. From your point of view, why the change?
JM: I will do as much as we possibly can do to provide as much access to the press as possible.

...

Time: Do you miss the old way of doing it?
JM: I don't know what you're talking about.

Time: Really? Come on, Senator.
JM: I'll provide as much access as possible ...

Time: In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?
JM: [Does not answer.]

...

Time: You do acknowledge there was a change in the campaign, in the way you had run the campaign?
JM: [Shakes his head.]

Time: You don't acknowledge that? O.K., when your aides came to you and you decided, having been attacked by Barack Obama, to run some of those ads, was there a debate?
JM: The campaign responded as planned.

It goes on like that for a while. Of course if I were McCain I'd be unhappy too. Because of my extreme oldness. That and I would be coming from a party utterly bereft of ideas to confront the various problems facing my nation. But mainly because of the oldness thing.