John McCain feels jilted?

Misty water-colored memories ... of the way we were. I think we're beginning to get a better picture of what makes ex-presidential candidate current professional talk show chair warmer John McCain tick, but I don't know that it's any more flattering than our original assumptions that it's post-electoral bile. This article on Sen. Sunday is not a particularly kind look in general, but there certainly is a theme that can be sussed out:

As an example, [Charlie Black] said that Obama met with McCain after the 2008 election to discuss common areas of interest, including immigration. 'And then he never heard from Obama again,' Black said. [']

McCain said that the Obama administration gave him a confidential mission during a trip to Iraq to ascertain the willingness of Iraqi leaders to accept a significant residual force. ['] McCain said he never heard back and read in the papers about the administration's decision to dramatically scale down. [']

After a gunman gravely injuredcolleague Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in January 2011, McCain, with Salter's help, wrote an editorial commending Obama for his speech in the wake of the Tucson shooting. McCain said he received an invitation to the White House, where the two former adversaries discussed immigration reform in the Oval Office. Obama, he said, pledged his commitment to move the issue forward. 'They never got back to me,' McCain said.

' which fits the pattern of McCain as being, well, someone who is damn bitter that he does not have a bigger role in things, who demands a bigger role in things, and who goes to special efforts to make sure he either does have that role or, alternatively, will just take up the mantle of whatever other thing he can get his hands on that might offer some decent television time (Benghazi). McCain is already the Official Senator of All of Sunday Television, the person the nation turns to in order to find out the curmudgeonly Republican opinion on things; he also seems to expect that the White House ought to be treating him as, what, an unofficial cabinet member?