Neat Snippet From When Comedy Central Tried to "gotcha" John McCain

[wvkeeper(HN)]

Even for John McCain. As a former POW and bona fide hero, McCain is generally inoculated against the journalistic heel-snapping that bedevils other presidential candidates. But two weekends ago, as he was campaigning across New Hampshire, a team of comics with a camera crew from the cable network Comedy Central clambered aboard his campaign bus to enlist him in their own little game of gotcha.

Who's your favorite poet? they asked McCain.

According to the cosmology of the sophisticates at Comedy Central, politicians are not supposed to have favorite poets. McCain hesitated, and then said, "Robert Service, I guess." Okay, the comedians pressed as the cameras rolled, then recite some of his poetry. Gotcha? Here again, the Comedy Central team revealed their own provincialism. They were apparently ignorant of one of the ironclad rules of modern poetry: Anyone who likes Robert Service can recite Robert Service. By the yard. And that's what McCain did. After a bumpy push-off, by one witness's account, he ran through all 14 stanzas of "The Cremation of Sam McGee,"

On the bus in New Hampshire, the wise-asses from Comedy Central were apparently impressed with McCain's performance. As they were breaking down their camera equipment, McCain mentioned offhandedly how he had come to memorize "Sam McGee." "The guy in the cell next to me," he said, "it was his favorite poem. He used to tap it to me on the wall, in Morse Code. That's how I memorized it."

https://www.weeklystandard.com/andrew-ferguson/reagan-mccain-and-sam-mcgee