As Cliff's book, The Real McCain, amply demonstrates, the reality of John McCain's person and career is somewhat different from the carefully constructed persona that has been presented through the media for the last fifteen years or so. The question of the moment is whether now, with only two months until election day, there is a change afoot in the long love affair that is John McCain's relationship with the press.

It appears that the McCain campaign is falling back on that old Republican standby, whining about the media. McCain's campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, is blasting the press for asking tough questions about McCain's running mate, whom virtually no one had heard of just a week ago. When Campbell Brown of CNN grilled a McCain spokesperson about Sarah Palin's qualifications, the McCain campaign responded by canceling an interview McCain had scheduled with Larry King, no doubt with flared nostrils and a loud "Harumph!" As a parent of small children, I am well familiar with this kind of behavior.

Joe Klein wrote today, "Those of us who have criticized the candidate--and especially those of us who enjoyed good relations with McCain in the past--have been subject to off-the-record browbeating and attempted bullying all year. But things have gotten much worse in recent days." The McCain campaign would appear to be playing a dangerous game. McCain didn't bring a lot of advantages to this race, but one thing he could count on was the affection of the press. He has benefited greatly from that affection thus far (a Lexis-Nexis search on "McCain AND maverick" just for yesterday - a single day - yields 217 hits). But I doubt that the benefit McCain gets from posing as a victimized underdog will outweigh the cost of biting the hands that have fed him for so long.

There's no doubt, though, that complaints about the media are what the Republican faithful want to hear. Even last night's video tribute to Ronald Reagan included the line, "The media despised him." Anyone who was alive during the 1980s could only laugh at that one (read Mark Hertsgaard's classic book On Bended Knee for details). But the accusation of media bias has been written into the conservative DNA. Back when the Republican base didn't have much use for McCain, they used to complaint about him being the media's favorite politician. Now that he's their standard-bearer, they can't help but complain that the media aren't being fair to him.

Working the refs does work, but it comes at a cost. One of the things that always differentiated McCain from other politicians in reporters' eyes was that he treated them with respect, even love. He acted as though he valued what they do and wanted to be their friend. This was in stark contrast to most politicians, who treat reporters like the enemy, or at the very least like some kind of dangerous animal around whom one doesn't want to make any sudden moves. But once you start questioning their motives and telling them that they're unprofessional, they might start thinking you're not their friend after all.