Huffington Post silly today - MCCAIN CONFRONTS OBAMA ON MARINE ONE!!!!!

I get a lot of political news from the Huffington Post along with Politico.com and fivethirtyeight.com to name a few, and every once in a while HP has a really attention-grabbing headline that doesn't turn out to be quite so dramatic at all. Today was another example of this. The headline was something like:

MCCAIN CONFRONTS OBAMA

along with this picture:

Oh no, McCain's challenging Obama! The article then goes on to say that:

Perhaps the sharpest exchange of the bunch came at the beginning, when John McCain, after receiving a few plaudits from the president, asked Obama about defense procurements and, more specifically, the expensive fleet of presidential helicopters that were ordered during the Bush years but will be assigned during the current presidency.

It wasn't quite at the level of an election year debate. But McCain managed to not only put the president on the spot, but shine a spotlight on one of his pet issues. "Your helicopter is now going to cost as much as Air Force One," McCain told Obama. "I don't think that there's anymore graphic demonstration of how good ideas have cost taxpayers enormous amount of money."

Ouch, a sharp exchange! I want to see a video of that! Okay then, here it is.

Notice anything about the video? That's right, it's actually not a challenge or a confrontation, it's a cordial exchange consisting of a polite question followed by a polite answer. Lots of "John McCain is a great guy" from Obama and "Mr. President" from McCain, and a bit of laughter in the middle too.

Luckily a few people in the comments seem to get it: here, here, and here are three examples. The rest of them are mostly "old man yells at cloud!" and "get over it, you lost!". That's why it pays to ignore the headline and the comments a lot of the time.