McCain is skewered by Barbara Walters & Co

You learn something new everyday. Loose Women is an ITV programme I watch three times a week as I do my treadmill exercise. I didn't realise that it is based on ABC's "The View" in the US, which was devised by dear old Barbara Walters.

Anyway, five women faced John McCain yesterday on "The View" and McCain came away with a few "grill marks". The juiciest segment is below.

Barbara Walters first asked Mr. McCain to defend his earlier statement that Ms. Palin was “the greatest vice presidential candidate in the history of the United States.” Was he perhaps overlooking John Adams or George H.W. Bush? (CNN continues in summary):

"That's not a little strong?" (asked Walters) "We politicians are never given to exaggerations or hyperbole, as you know," McCain joked, before praising Palin as the most "popular governor in America" and one who has united a "spark in America."
Walters went on to press Palin's reformist credentials, noting McCain has served in Washington for more than two decades and asking repeatedly, "Who's she going to reform, you?"
McCain answered by saying Democrats have controlled Congress for two years, but then Walters quickly interrupted: "But tell me who she is going to reform -- we aren't talking about the economy, we're not talking about housing; she was chosen to reform, who is she going to reform?"
Appearing somewhat frustrated, McCain said, "The Democrat Party, the Republican Party, even an independent. She'll reform all of Washington."
Walters, seeming somewhat exasperated, asked, "How? What will she do? What is she going to reform specifically, senator?"
McCain said Palin had a strong record on vetoing earmark spending.
"The fact is she was a reform governor, she took on an incumbent governor of her own party and defeated him. She sold the airplane and fired the chef," McCain said, referring to Palin's efforts to put her predecessor's state jet up for auction on eBay and her dismissal of the governor's personal chef.
"She sold the airplane at a loss," Walters interrupted.
(The jet failed to draw sufficient bids on eBay and later was sold at a loss through an ordinary aircraft brokerage.)

(The New York Times' Caucus blog has an interesting comment on this section) Pressed, he added: “The Republicans, the Democrat party, even the independents. She’ll reform all of Washington.”
How?
“By doing what she did in Alaska.”
What, exactly?
“First of all, earmark spending, which she vetoed a half a billion dollars worth in the state of Alaska.”
But she also put earmarks in, Ms. Walters noted.
“Not as governor she didn’t,” Mr. McCain said.
But as governor, she did. As the Anchorage Daily News, among others, has reported, in Ms. Palin’s first year as governor, she requested 52 earmarks valued at $256 million, and this year, her office asked the Alaska delegation in Washington to help land 31 earmarks valued at $197 million. Also, Citizens Against Government Waste ranks Alaska as having received the “most pork per capita” of all states this year.

...(Joy) Behar brought up two of his recent ads against Mr. Obama, one suggesting that when Mr. Obama had used a colloquial expression about putting “lipstick on a pig,” he was referring to Ms. Palin and the other suggesting that Mr. Obama wanted sex education for children. “We know those two ads are untrue, they’re lies,” she said, and yet at the end of each, Mr. McCain’s voice says he approves of those messages.
“They are not lies,” Mr. McCain said. “And if you’ve seen some of the ads that are running against me…”
The conversation broke off in cross-talk, and Mr. McCain then rejoined to say that Mr. Obama “chooses his words very carefully and he shouldn’t have said it.”