Dan Rather, Steve Carell, McCain and Me

Nearly nine years ago, a friend of my wife’s told her, “Hey I saw Chris on TV last night!”

Thinking I was just spotted in some shot of reporters at a news conference on Capitol Hill, she asked what channel it was on.

“Comedy Central,” her friend said. “He was sleeping on the McCain bus.”

Sure enough, I had been caught by Steve Carell _ now a big star, then a traveling “reporter” for Comedy Central _ taking a nap on Sen. John McCain’s “trailing bus” in late 1999 in New Hampshire.

Look for me exactly one minute into this video:

In point of fact, I had been on the Straight Talk Express earlier that day. I think we boarded about 6:30 a.m. after a long night; there was a Republican debate in New Hampshire the previous night.

So I’m making excuses here about getting some shut-eye. I was running on very little sleep, and I had been rotated off the main bus so some other reporters could sit with McCain and ask questions.

But here’s my Dan Rather story. He was on the bus that morning, too (it was obviously a great day to be traveling with McCain, huh?)

I met Rather first thing that morning, when we all got on the bus.

A little while later, we stopped at a high school for McCain to give a speech. After he gave it, and was working the crowd, I headed back to the bus and, when I got on, Rather and I were the only ones there for a few minutes.