It's Friday - let's all watch the John McCain fudge Haus presser one more time! This time watch closely for the exchange that occurs at the 2:21 mark:



Now just the exchange in question:



Sam Stein over at The Huffington Post caught this earlier and you can watch a higher-resolution video in his post. Sam explains the back-story of what reason McCain could possibly have had for conspicuously blowing off a reporter at a press availability: he didn't like some recent articles she'd written.

First, TPMtv simply must point out the best aspect of this exchange - watch McCain surrogate Senator Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) face right after McCain does the diss:





Not sure if this is relevant, but John McCain begins the fudge Haus presser by saying "Lindsey come on," sounding distinctly dog-owner-ish.

But ultimately it wasn't Lindsey Graham who dissed a young reporter on national television and in front of her colleagues simply because he thought she was writing mean things about him. That was presidential candidate John McCain who did that. After the fudge Haus presser we were talking in the office yesterday about the growing feeling that the bigger Obama gets (stage-, moment-, crowd size-, etc.- wise), the smaller McCain seems to shrink, not just in comparison to Obama but like, in the way McCain reacts to Obama's moves. Anyone else getting this sense? Maybe it's just us.

And yeah, TPMtv knows Obama's relations with the press seem to be cooling of late as well, but is there not a pretty fundamental difference between sending out a campaign e-mail pressing back on an article and publicly embarrassing a reporter at a televised press conference?