Watching McCain’s speech last night, I kept wondering — why is there a mansion on the jumbotron behind him?
It wasn’t the White House. Was it supposed to be one of McCain’s eight houses? But it surely couldn’t be in Phoenix — the surrounding landscape looked too verdant and lush.
Turns out that, no, it’s not a mansion at all.
It’s a middle school.
Specifically, Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California.
As Josh Marshall of Talkingpointsmemo points out, there’s no logic or reason in McCain’s biography for this school. It’s as if it were chosen because the words “Walter Reed” are in its name, that the tech guys, looking for pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, did a half-assed job and selected a picture of Walter Reed Middle School.
Because, why else would it be there? 
ETA: Talkingpointsmemo has more — the school board issued a statement decrying the use of Walter Reed Middle School as the backdrop to McCain’s speech. The best part? Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Tamar Galatzan wrote:
As a strong believer in public education, I don’t think the Senator is the most appropriate person to showcase one of the premier schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is unwilling to bring fairness and equity to No Child Left Behind and ensure that schools like Reed get the resources they need from the Federal Government.
By the way, the McCain campaign has yet to respond to why it was that Walter Reed Middle School served as his backdrop.
McCain had the problems from his appropriation of the music of John Mellancamp and, later, Jackson Browne without their permission, using their music to make political points they, themselves, would not have made. He’s run into problems with the use of Heart’s “Barracuda,” and now he’s being blasted by a school board.
If this is how John McCain runs his campaign — appropriate something, then run like hell away from it when caught — is this how he would run the country as a President? Would he be Mr. Cut-and-Run? Because that’s certainly how he’s running his campaign now.