McCain, 71, nods off on 'Late Night with Conan'

By the time Sen. John McCain gets on NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" tonight, it's gonna look like it's way past the veteran senator's bedtime.

The show was, of course, taped this afternoon, a little bit late due to a very surprising event: air traffic congestion above and around Newark's airport. Imagine that! And on a Friday, too.

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But it's amazing what can happen when you have the Secret Service on your side: the Lincoln Tunnel was closed and McCain's motorcade sped through midtown Manhattan to the NBC studios.

(Oh well, he wasn't gonna win New York's voters over anyway.)

There, the Republican nominee-to-be was well-received, even when Conan begged the 71-year-old war vet and POW to give late-night comedians something other than his age to joke about.

There was a pause. And McCain fell over asleep.

The late-night host acknowledged his colleagues had been unable to find anything to make fun about Barack Obama. (One idea: How about those Prince Charles-like jug ears?)

"I say we're tired of this take on you," O'Brien complained. "We....

...don't want to do those (old) jokes anymore.  Can you give us anything else?  Do you have a kooky uncle?  Do you have bad breath?  Webbed toes?  Anything?  Give us something, and we'll run with it." 

Quipped McCain: "All of the above!"

Then the Republican candidate suggested, "I was able to get shot down...I intercepted a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane. That's no mean feat."

Conan observed: "People don't really laugh at that. I've tried that, they're like, yeah, yeah, he's a war hero. What's your problem? I don't know, we need to find something else, and so just think about it, get back to me."

"How 'bout my mom. You know about my mom. She's 96."

McCain said when he got back from nearly six years in a North Vietnamese prison, his mother wanted to talk to him. She had seen videotape of him cussing out his guards and was disturbed with his language. McCain tried to explain to his mother, now 96, "they were the bad guys."

When Conan asked McCain about the polls showing him behind Obama by three, four, five, 15, 20 points, McCain said that he was "dead, buried," just like last summer. When, he said, "we learned what it's like to be in Group C on Southwest Airlines between (Baltimore) and Manchester Airport in New Hampshire."

After a day in Michigan that included a speech, tech center tour and fundraiser, McCain seemed in fine form. Conan inquired about the search for his vice presidential running mate. Could he even find anyone after McCain himself had pooh-poohed the No. 2 job for so long?

"That job," replied McCain, "will be very, very important with my vice president!"

The complete show will be aired late tonight on NBC. For a couple of video clips, courtesy of our buddy Lee at NBC, see below.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo credits: NBC

Comments

[dave]

while having being shot down in one, and having crashed a number of planes on his own is of course a lasting traumatizing, and haunting experience for him, this does not in any way show that he knows not to also crash america. most people do not want someone in the white house, who knows how to be a compliant pow, and proud son of admirals who dreams of breaking lose an armageddon, to prove that he can be a warlord too. and who does not care, if that involves taking down the world with him. somewhere between two naps. the other officially imposed nominee being in his own way, equally disqualified, what's there to joke about? the joke is on the people, and the yoke is way too heavy, that they could put up with it. the only candidate for president both qualified and willing to correct the country's course, is candidate for president, RON PAUL.

[Hillary Kitten]

John McCain was driving his "Straight Talk Express" bus home to Arizona when he got a frantic call on his cell phone from his wife Cindy. "Be careful, John," she warned him. "I just heard on the news that there's someone driving the wrong way on the highway." John replied, "There's not just one. There's hundreds of them!"

[Ericmiami]

I wonder if McCain's plan for Afghanistan calls for pulling troops from Czechoslovakia?

[keith]

Ron Paul's kicking rocks in this election. He's a never was, never will be, mainly because he's a big kook and 92% of the people voting consistently knew it.

[A person with eyes and a sense of humor]

Are you in the liberal media so DESPERATE to find something wrong that you actually used "FELL ASLEEP" in your text and "NODS OFF" in your title, completely ignorant of the fact that it was a JOKE???

McCain was JOKING People. I guess Andrew Malcolm should go to bed earlier and just forget watching late night TV since it is for grownups.

[Andrew Austin]

Ron Paul is a white nationalist and a segregationist. Pick somebody else to admire.

[Big Shaker]

Dave - "A compliant POW?" That is an offensive misrepresentation and a cowardly one. Whiners like you haven't earned the right to denigrate ANY POW, much less McCain.

[Howard]

It appears that unlike Obama, Mccain has a sense of humor, and the ability to laugh at himself, rather than to take offense at everything other than praise and adulation ... like Obama.

[tom]

Ron Paul, what an inconsequential! I think it's funny, when O'Bama is overseas with Katie Kourec doing his makeup, Charley Gibson his hair and Brian Williams his nails, that the ones left behind are labeling McCain 'sleepy'! We all know that McCain is a funny dude and has been on shows like this for years. We also know that O'Bama, while he's taking a crash course in statesmanship, isn't the eloquent speaker liberals think he is. Cannot survive without a teleprompter! But won't he look good striding the White House grounds!! Idiots... I have as much experience as he does!

[rezzrovv]

I'm not a fan of McCain but the more I learn of his personal character, the more I'm impressed. Examples include the Vietcong wanting to release him and he refuse while there was someone in the Hanoi Hilton that had been there longer than him. I'm not aware of anything close in character from Obama's past. Maybe changing his name from Barry?

[dave]

gore and obama are players for one team: the global tyranny of the nwo, and so is mccain.
gore would single-handedly let the oceans rise to diluvial levels, and fire and brimstone suffocate you, unless you buy into the plans he has in place for you;
mccain would single-handedly blow up the whole world in a nuclear sacrifice unto his alter?ego, unless you destroy the remote control.
obama would single-handedly ensure that even in a distant future, himself and your descendants remember his ascent
and seizure of power as 'the moment the rise of the oceans began to slow.'
once you sign away your inalienable rights and birthright, what's life to you?
once you board this ark, whether single or in pairs, who'd ever let you or your offspring out again to see the light of day?