Journalists have a curious term for newsworthiness: "a story." For example, "Yankee Stadium Shuts Down"--that's "a story." John McCain is about to break a 41-day streak--that's how long he's gone without talking to a national reporter. Streak, hell: He's running a drought of Noah proportions. Why hasn't the drought been "a story"? On the dog-bites-man principle that McCain avoids the press every day, so nothing is new?

According to Sam Stein at HuffPost, a reporter shouted out, "Has your bus become the No Talk Express?" McCain, Stein writes, "offered a smirk at the line but kept on walking."

His campaign has put out the word that he's going to break his streak today at 4 PM in Michigan. There's a mountainous pile-up of unasked questions. Here are a few proposals:

• On July 7, you said: "Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace." Why is this a disgrace?

• You have frequently endorsed the creation of private accounts, invested in the stock and bond markets, as an option for social security. If the measures you supported had taken effect, millions of Americans might have invested part of their public pensions into a collapsing market. Isn't that so?

• When did you decide that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were derelict? Was it before or after your transition chief, William Timmons, quit lobbying for Freddie Mac?

• When did you decide that a previous beneficiary of your lobbying largesse, Charles Keating, was a scoundrel and a criminal responsible for swindling depositors and taxpayers of millions of dollars? Was it before or after you and your wife vacationed on a Caribbean island?

Oh, never mind.