Okay, don’t forget about McCain. But don’t let this suck all the air out of this, which is prob­a­bly more impor­tant in the long run and cer­tainly casts a sus­pi­cious light on this.

Here’s the nub of the issue:

The government’s top cam­paign finance reg­u­la­tor says John McCain can’t drop out of the pri­mary election’s public financ­ing system until he answers ques­tions about a loan he obtained to kick­start his once fal­ter­ing pres­i­den­tial campaign.

Fed­eral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion Chair­man David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Repub­li­can nom­i­nee needs to assure the com­mis­sion that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 mil­lion line of credit he obtained in November.

Which sug­gests that McCain would do well to get his own house in order before swing­ing after Obama in the name of cam­paign finance reform.*

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*Clarification/correction [2/22]: McCain’s nascent FEC trou­bles only have to do with public financ­ing in the pri­mary elec­tion, so they prob­a­bly don’t have much to do with his chal­lenge to Obama, as I orig­i­nally speculated.