Or, maybe, director Barry Levinson should have advised John McCain. In his blog at the Huffington Post, Levinson conjectures:

Over the years since directing Wag The Dog I have been asked whether Hollywood producers are directly involved in political campaigns. I hear rumors from time to time that they might be pulling the strings but no hard evidence. But my suspicion is, no Hollywood producer is involved in the McCain presidential run. I say this for a simple reason, it’s badly orchestrated, lacks a narrative, and when they come across a good story idea they bungle it. An example: When McCain left the campaign trail to return to Washington to help solve the financial crisis it blew up in his face. It made him seem erratic, ineffectual, and worse of all, not true to his words. There’s an old Hollywood axiom that says, “Don’t put the leading man in a scene that makes him look bad.”

What follows is Levinson’s rewrite of McCain’s scene. It’s better.