The new Vanity Fair has a ten page article by Todd Purdham on John McCain in which he discusses the war in Iraq, Bush, Hillary Clinton and more.

Purdum, who spent two long stints on the road with John McCain last fall, reports that he kept up a punishing pace. According to Purdum, he is mentally sharp, verbally facile, and perpetually curious, and on one of the trips, he was rereading Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But he is visibly older, thinner, balder—and, yes, frailer—than he was just six years ago.

On Adam Nagourney of the New York Times:

This is Adam Nagourney, New York Times. They’re a Communist paper, but he’s O.K.”

On Hillary Clinton:

“People underestimate her political intelligence and her antennae. She’s not her husband—no ones’s her husband. But she’s good. And I like her. I know you’re not supposed to say that, but I do.”