Lame. Not what he said about being proud, which is perfectly apt and uncontroversial and not to be confused with Michelle Obama saying Barry’s candidacy was the first time she’d been proud of her country in her adult life. What’s lame is that he didn’t instantly recognize the question as a dig at her. Good lord, Maverick — you really are out of touch with the base.

The questioner noted that he had been educated at Princeton and Harvard and made more than $300,000 a year.

“How can I be proud of my country?” he asked.

Get it — he was mocking Michelle Obama and her statement earlier this year that her husband had for the first time in her life made her proud of her country.

Well, McCain either missed the joke or decided to ignore it and answer the question literally. I think it was the former because the individual asking the question had a thick accent that sounded to be either Indian or Pakistani, perhaps suggesting to McCain a recent immigrant grappling with America’s image abroad.

“I’ll admit to you that it’s tough, it’s tough in some respects,” McCain said, seeming to lend credence to Michelle Obama’s observation.

McCain said America needed to be “more humble, more inclusive.”

Coming soon to Fox News: Bob Beckel gets a hot tip from Larry Johnson that McCain’s been caught on tape saying he hates America, then duly attributes the rumor to conservative “honkies” when the rumor blows up in his face. Exit question: Is it momentarily “tough in some respects” to be proud of America when the nominee of the party of border enforcement is outdoing the Democrat in pandering to the most influential amnesty advocacy group in the country?