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So McCain Plays Games On His Phone When He's Bored; Do You?

Those are the hands and phone of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He gets bored sometimes, the lawmaker says. So, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, he played a little poker.
Melina Mara
/
The Washington Post/Getty Images
Those are the hands and phone of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He gets bored sometimes, the lawmaker says. So, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, he played a little poker.

We were shocked, shocked to see of Sen. John McCain playing poker on his phone during Tuesday's about whether to take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

"One card or two?"
Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images
/
AFP/Getty Images
"One card or two?"

The Arizona Republican and 2008 GOP presidential nominee :

"Scandal! Caught playing iPhone game at 3+ hour Senate hearing — worst of all I lost!"

He that "as much as I like to and always listen in rapt attention constantly [to] remarks of my colleagues over a three and a half hour period, occasionally I get a little bored. ... But the worst thing about it is I lost thousands of dollars in this game."

Fake dollars, he quickly added.

McCain, of course, is known for his sense of humor, his sharp tongue and his flashes of temper. Perhaps he's a natural for "Angry Birds?"

Speaking of which, his hometown Arizona Republic recently ."

"Angry Birds" made that list.

Meanwhile, as you might suspect if you've read this far, the "news" that McCain was playing poker on his phone while other senators were probably saying things he'd heard many times doesn't strike us as terribly surprising. It does make us wonder, though, how many Two-Way readers have done the same sort of thing.

We should note that etiquette experts, including some who work for the federal government, suggest that cell phones " " and that one should avoid " ."

On much more serious notes, why he supports striking Syria (from the air; not with "boots on the ground"). There's word today that he worked out by the Foreign Relations Committee in support of military action because it puts too many limits on what can be done.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
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