Abuse me, please

John McCain's famous temper flashes at a reporter when asked about a conversation with John Kerry.

The text itself is pretty wild, with McCain incredibly incoherent in his rebuttals, to the point where I'm not sure what it is that he's denying. But I think in his mind he wants people to be assured that he'd never cozied up to Kerry at all during the 2004 election.

What's most telling to me, however, is this:

Bumiller: “Okay. Can I ask you about your (pause) Why you’re so angry?”

McCain: “Pardon me?”

Bumiller: “Nevermind, nevermind.”

There are some not-unfounded fears that the media will lionize McCain throughout the campaign as a straight-mavericking talker or a talking maverick-straighter, but frankly, this sort of behavior from the GOP's Great White Hope doesn't lead me to believe that such reverence will continue. McCain, throughout the Republican debates, has come off as a cranky, tired old man who believes he deserves the Presidency and doesn't want anyone to throw him off his goal of getting it. Since right now he's out to woo conservatives, whippersnapper reporters who challenge his School of Reagan cred are probably to be treated like ornery mosquitos to be swatted.

It's early in the campaign, for crying out loud. If he snaps at more reporters, I feel that the media machine will gradually laud McCain with less and less enthusiasm, to the point where outside the Fox News circuit, McCain's "strengths" will be delivered with all the conviction of a suburban junior high school principal. The media may have a certain amount of masochism for their great Tax Relief Overlords, but it can only go so far.