Thursday 4 September 2008
John McCain’s insistent recourse to “my friends” is easily the most mystifying verbal tic of any politician since Bob Dole’s out-of-body presidential campaign of 1996, which featured Dole’s not entirely reassuring promise that “Bob Dole is not some sort of fringe candidate.” Like Dole’s use of the dissociative third person—or illeism, a propensity also shared by Elmo and the Incredible Hulk—this year’s obsessive invocations to friendship invite scrutiny. Slate ☀
