Fight for Your Right To Party
'Red Widow' Gets The Axe
McCain gets his priorities straight: Letterman first, then the economy
by Allison Waldman, posted Oct 13th 2008 3:09PM
Now that Senator John McCain is doing the most important thing in his campaign to become the 44th president of the United States, agreeing to appear The Late Show with David Letterman, I think we can say that the Straight Talk Express is on the way to being back on track. It was inevitable, and really, really necessary, for McCain to fix this problem with Dave. McCain was the butt of the joke for nearly three weeks and it hasn't helped his campaign. Appearing Thursday should do a lot to ameliorate his image and in every way it can only be a win-win for McCain and Letterman.
McCain should have known better at the time -- or his people should have. I give him credit for calling Dave directly and explaining the cancellation at the time, but he should have rescheduled immediately and been completely honest with his plans to do Couric.
Being caught on camera being made up for the Couric appearance while Letterman was taping his show was bad form. It's interesting that some at CBS were peeved with Letterman for using the internal feed, but they couldn't do anything about it. At CBS, Dave is king.
I say this not only because it would have been politically savvy of McCain and his camp to keep up good relations with Letterman. I say it because McCain had been on Dave's show 13 times. He's an old pro at doing the talk show circuit. Guests that bail at the last minute rarely escape without being lamb-basted.
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