How old did you say McCain is now?

Here is a McCain video that a lot of people are watching.



Sharp as a tack, isn't he? Wonder if he got his nap.

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Addendum 11:33 am CDT
Josh Marshall asks how much longer the Washington Press corps will continue to grade McCain on the curve. Will they continue to ignore his two major reversals of general policy positions in the last six years and his apparent mental slippage on the campaign trail much longer?

Let's be frank. On the campaign trail this cycle, McCain frequently forgets key elements of policies, gets countries' names wrong, forgets things he's said only hours or days before and is frequently just confused. Any single example is inevitable for someone talking so constantly day in and day out. But the profusion of examples shows a pattern. Some of this is probably a matter of general unseriousness or lack of interest in policy areas like the economy that he doesn't care much about. But for any other politician who didn't have the benefit of years of friendship or acquaintance with many of the reporters covering him, this would be a major topic of debate in the campaign. It's whispered about among reporters. And it's evidenced in his campaign's increasing effort to keep him away from the freewheeling conversations with reporters that defined his 2000 candidacy. But it's verboten as a topic of public discussion.

The other point that again goes almost totally undiscussed is McCain's two reinventions of himself over the last decade. From a mainline conservative Republican to progressive reform candidate to Bush Republican. The reporters who have been covering him for the last decade know that there is virtually no public policy issue of note which McCain hasn't made a 180 degree change of position on in the last half dozen years. An ideological shift of that magnitude is far from unprecedented. And such turnabouts or transformations can be a product of searching insights into the changing terrain of American governance. But two such shifts in the course of a decade strongly suggest either instability or opportunism.

Frankly it looks like McCain is currently functioning at about the same level as Reagan in the later part of his second term and declining.

It's not just a question for the Washington Press Corps. The larger question is whether the Republican convention will actually nominate an individual who is mentally declining so rapidly. But if they don't, how will they pull off a switch and who WILL they nominate?