Meghan McCain has a "problem" with HBO's Game Change, an upcoming miniseries based on the book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin that chronicled the 2008 campaign--including John Edwards's affair coverup and McCain's father's many, many f-bombs. What so bad about the show? Halperin had the temerity to call her for comment mere weeks after the 2008 election. The reporter wanted to ask her "what really happened." She didn't find this to be terribly sensitive.

McCain is also miffed that Heilemann and Halperin weren't even "imbeds" in the campaign--so most of the salacious stuff in Game Change "more than likely never happened." Not that she would necessarily be an expert--McCain herself details in her book, Dirty Sexy Politics, her hysterics when the campaign wouldn't even tell her who her dad's vice-presidential pick was. McCain argues, too, that most of Heilemann's and Halperin's interviews were with "disgruntled staffers." She has "doubts" about the scenes involving Elizabeth Edwards and says the stories about her father yelling obscenities to her mother are "absurd." She also compares herself to Mark Zuckerberg, dealing with the movie The Social Network.

On top of her other problems with Game Change, McCain admits she "couldn't get through the whole book." So we wonder: despite her disdain for "elites," did McCain--given a $700,000 loft in New York upon her graduation from Columbia University--play one of Washington elite's favorite games with this book, checking a political book's index for her name? How else is she this alert to the personal injustices perpetrated by a book she didn't read?

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Elspeth Reeve