John McCain fielded some hostile questions from the Des Moines Register editorial board yesterday. Watch a few of his responses here (HT: Marc Ambinder):

Good for McCain. I was pleased to see him push back against some stupid and tendentious questions, particularly the notion that his ad about Obama's vote for sex-ed for elementary school children was a lie. But did this help advance his campaign?

Mike Murphy wonders:

What the Hell was McCain even doing there in the first place?

1.) Obama is going to win Iowa.

2.) Editorial board meetings are usually pure trouble to begin with and result only in newspaper endorsements that persuade very few voters beyond the immediate family members of the editorial board.

3.) Within the rarified category of newspaper editorial boards, the Des Moines Register is one of the most liberal in the country. I'm rather surprised that halfway through the McCain interview they failed to switch over to Esperanto, the peace-loving language of all nations.

So, 35 days left and McCain is in Iowa? Why put McCain in the wrong state, at the wrong place? No surprise the result is the wrong message and the wrong tone.