Hand-Tied By The Times.(Howard Fineman; Living Politics)(John McCain; The New York Times)

Byline: Howard Fineman

There is no easier TV "get" in Washington than Sen. John McCain. When Sunday talk-show bookers call, he always says yes--52 times to "Meet the Press" alone, a record for current officeholders. Last week, though, he was suddenly, categorically, unavailable. I asked his communications director, Jill Hazelbaker, whether her boss would be on. "Nope," she e-mailed, "Black doing Face." Translation: McCain's campaign would dispatch Charlie Black--lawyer, lobbyist, personal friend, top adviser--to appear on "Face the Nation." There, Good Soldier Black would presumably field permutations of the question raised by a blandly accusatory story in The New York Times: was McCain too close--way too close--to the capital culture of cash and clout he says he wants to reform? (That the unflappable Black was a well-tailored emblem of that culture evidently did not occur to the folks at McCain campaign headquarters.)

Those of us on the Straight Talk Express eight years ago got a breathtaking journalistic opportunity: to be inside the lively mind and heart of a leading contender for president. McCain was as joyously combative as Popeye and as earnestly confessional as Oprah. Now, in the wake of the Times story, the old bus has, in effect, been put up on cinder blocks, the traveling press now carefully kept at a distance. More important, and perhaps lost in the story of his political turnaround after New Hampshire, the Straight Talker himself seems to have changed--a change evident long before the Times launched its front-page fusillade. The story will, no doubt, serve only to reinforce how he comes across now: as a wary, somber and even grave figure, standing at attention, surrounded by aides, his wife at his side like a loyal adjutant. "He's not the Lone Ranger anymore," says Black. What's happened to the old John McCain?

His aides and associates point to ...