By Ray Stern
Stop the presses! Presidential candidate John McCain was involved in serious car accident (in 1964)!
And there's more -- McCain also hosted a family reunion on an island naval base at taxpayer expense (in 1991)!
It's kind of late in the game for these stories to break, what with the election just days away, and neither story is very well fleshed out. The car crash story, even if it's true, doesn't contain a clear answer for why anyone should care. There's no allegation that McCain did anything wrong, or even firm proof of an accident.
The island story was first covered briefly in 1992 by ABC News before being rehashed this week in the liberal Nation magazine's article, "McCain's Bermuda Triangle." It appears that the family vacation stretched ethical boundaries, but stops short of saying McCain broke any laws.
The late-breaking stories aren't deal-breakers for those who still plan on voting for McCain, and neither seems likely to grow more interesting in the next several days.
But the journalists working on them had to publish what they had on hand quickly: With more and more polls showing the election is tipping toward Obama, any story about McCain at this point may have a very short shelf life.
