What is Real?

At a point when McCain and Palin are asking, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" - a question that implies, "Someone other than the person you think you know." - it grabs your attention to run across the line, "This is the story of the real John McCain" in Tim Dickinson's "Make-Believe Maverick" story in the current Rolling Stone. Considering Rolling Stone's lead time, the phrase had to have already been written before the McCain campaign picked it up, but it mocks his effort to stain Obama and is a yet another reminder about the value of remembering who you are and what you've done before going after others.

By the way, Dickinson's story is pretty brutal, going into the up-to-now no-fly-zone of McCain's military record, which he finds to be as, ummmmm, checkered as McCain's political career.