Nope!

McCain is always sticking his tongue out for some reason - I've seen at least ten pics with him doing something similar.

Basically I think he's got an unfortunate tic (as I suppose many of us do) that doesn't bear the minute scrutiny of the modern media.

Either that or he's a lizard.

The tongue is real...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/oliverburkemanblog/2008/oct/16/uselections2008-johnmccain1

...and trying to tell us something:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/tongue-jut.html

Maybe Obama had a picture of a donut on his back.

Its a real picture. No photoshopping, but it has been cropped. I don't know why, but with the table cropped out it looks a lot worse than the original.

Still... the Democrats would be fools to not use it at every opportunity.

I watched the debate live and when I saw this reaction from McCain I just knew this would be the screengrab moment featured on our blogs and commentators.

I find this a little sad when we spend a lot of our time complaining about the trivialiasation of politics.

We always worry about whether a snapshot taken entirely out of context will be portrayed to be more significant than it was in reality.

We're better than that - it was no more than an expression of relief. It had been a 90 minute debate, a prolonged and stressful examination of each candidate's views and policies.

A member of the Obama Team

Hardly the behaviour of a future President. McCain will have no-one to blame but himself when Obama kicks his butt next month.

Whilst i agree with you that neither of candidiates is excatly left wing. I am willing Obama on if only because we can't possibly have mad moose hunting women running the US! Remember Bob, one heartbeat!

@ jim jay

Your lizard explanation is the more plausible.