In an interview with the Orange County Register during his swing through California this week, John McCain was asked, “When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?”

“Oh, I don’t remember,” McCain answered. “Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.”

Off the top, this would seem to indicate that McCain is out of touch with the concerns of regular Americans. The classic instance of this was in the 1992 campaign when George Bush Sr. appeared not to know what the optical scanner was in a supermarket checkout.

And while it’s true that the price of gas doesn’t matter to a guy like McCain, whose wife has $100 million in assets, it strains credulity that he doesn’t know what gas costs.

The spike in gas prices has been one of the most-covered stories in the past few months. And we know he’s aware of it because he did a 180-degree flipflop on offshore drilling this month for the sole purpose of addressing the rising price of oil.

And even if for some reason he didn’t know he was recommending risking the natural beauty of the coasts of California, Florida and elsewhere for the sole reason that gasoline prices are going through the roof, is it possible he has failed to notice the signs at gas stations as he motors around the country in his chauffeured SUVs?

If he is not out of touch, the only other conclusion is that McCain was annoyed by the question and, on an impulse, he simply lied when he said he didn’t know what gas costs.

If so, he really is just like George Bush Jr., for whom lying is an apparently irresistible impulse — a reflex.

What is also similar to Bush here (at least in his first term) is that whether McCain’s answer was a gaffe that revealed him to be out of touch or whether it was a lie, the media will ignore it. As a writer at Newshogger put it, “[If] Obama had said it you would hear about nothing else on the Sunday talking heads shows and it would be on the front page of all the major papers. But St John gets a pass.”

Same as it ever was.