McCain Not in “Cone of Silence” During First Half Hour of Warren Forum
CNN (relevant part of interview at about 1:20) and the New York Times are reporting that John McCain was not in the “cone of silence” that Rev. Rick Warren suggested he would be in for part of the time of the hour Barack Obama took questions from the pastor. As you can see in the CNN interview, Rev. Warren admits as much. It turns out that McCain’s motorcade was stuck in traffic and was about half an hour late in arriving to Saddleback Church.
The story has spread throughout the news media and blogosphere, and as you can see, it has raised questions on whether McCain or his staffers had access to the questions being asked of Obama. I’m going to say that even if McCain had the opportunity to access the questions, he didn’t try to do it. I think McCain has more integrity than that.
Yes, the ability to find out what’s being asked ahead of time is certainly tempting. Yet, I’ve always seen McCain to be a man of integrity, even if I don’t agree with many of his positions. I also don’t like the Rovian “attack the character and raise fear, doubt, and uncertainty” style his campaign has taken, but Barack Obama is certainly no saint here either.
Some bloggers have suggested the reason that McCain was so much more prepared sounding and direct in his answers is because he knew what was going to be asked ahead of time. Yet, I’d counter that argument by saying that one-on-one forums are McCain’s forte. He doesn’t do well with prepared speeches, and it shows. Likewise, Obama doesn’t do well with off-the-cuff forums like this, and it shows, too. McCain and Obama showed two vastly different styles last night, as I’ve already discussed. Also, even if he did have access, half an hour is hardly sufficient time to prepare specific answers. Not nearly enough time. Warren explains in the CNN interview that both candidates had a ballpark idea of what was going to be asked, since Warren gave them the themes that would be covered. So, they both had time to prepare…several days before the forum.
Elrod at TMV ponders the coin toss that gave Obama the first hour, wondering how it could have been done if McCain wasn’t there at the time to participate. My answer is that it occurred well before the forum took place. When Elrod posed this question, I instantly remembered seeing sometime during the afternoon on Saturday about how the coin toss decided that Obama would go first. This was hours before the forum started. This San Francisco Chronicle article seems to back me up. Though the dateline shows Saturday, it appears to have originally been written sometime on Friday.
McCain’s campaign said he offered to hold a live town-hall meeting with Obama at the event, but that invitation was turned down. Instead, as the result of a coin toss, Obama will speak to the audience first, followed by McCain.
Since I’m defending John McCain, and expect to be labeled a “die hard McCain supporter” or equivalent by the usual suspects, I’ll end on this note: if Obama had been in the same position as McCain, I’d give the same argument for him.
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-->17 Responses to “McCain Not in “Cone of Silence” During First Half Hour of Warren Forum”
Comment from storeyy
Time August 18, 2008 at 8:18 am PDT
Rick Warren lied at the onset when he said John McCain was in the "cone of silence". He wold have had to know McCain wasn’t there. Everything after that is suspect.
Comment from Jonathan Wilson
Time August 18, 2008 at 8:50 am PDT
There’s a difference between a lie and misinformation. He was in a cone of silence at some point.
Comment from More Lies
Time August 18, 2008 at 8:50 am PDT
Storeyy is right. Man of honor? He cheated on his first wife. Participated in the Keating Five scandal. Republicans have LIED for 8 straight years. And you took it, and defended it. We are tired of your lies. This is suspect. It stinks, stinks, stinks of something…
And btw, I don’t say this because I thought McCain did a good job. I don’t. I don’t understand why people think this way. McCain gave easy, stock answers that Evangelicals wanted to hear. Here, the philanderer pretending to be a good Christian by saying b.s. like "at the moment of conception" and "defeat (evil)"
Spare me.
Barack gave introspective, thoughtful, articulate, intelligent answers full of moral struggle and passion. You can see his credibility in the Christain faith. McCain came off as a lightweight who was stumping, not having a conversation in a "civil forum."
Comment from Claudia, Assistant Editor
Time August 18, 2008 at 9:19 am PDT
I think the forum was held on a false premise. The greatest attraction of the forum was that it was guaranteed to be fair because the questions would be identical and there would be no way for one candidate to base his answers on the other. This was eliminated through this incident. Now your view of the fairness of the forum depends solely on your personal opinion of the truthfulness of the McCain campaign. If you trust McCain, you believe him, and if you don’t you do not. It lends reasonable doubt to the whole exercise. The McCain campaign has literally responded to doubts by saying that questioning the honesty of McCain, a former prisoner of war, is outrageous. Their use of his veteran status is so shameless it is nearly awe-inspiring.
Personally, though I don’t particularly trust nor distrust McCain, I would be inclined to doubt he listened in on Obama. I don’t believe this because I am relying on his honor, but on his answers. McCain answered virtually every single question with standard stump speech talking points (with a few exceptions). He literally hijacked whole questions and never really directed himself towards Warren, but towards the viewing public. I believe he had planned to do this from the very beginning. His staff really did think that he wouldn’t be able to listen in (I believe him being stuck in traffic was accidental) and so they prepared for the event by reviewing answers to a variety of issues and how to twist any question into either a reminder of his veteran status or a review of his policy talking points. This is a standard political practice and McCain treated this like a standard political event, not a conversation. I don’t see very much in his answers that would have been different had he not heard Obama.
Comment from dkawaii
Time August 18, 2008 at 9:33 am PDT
McCain a man of honor? More like a serial liar.
A few lies off the top of my head:
"I didn’t say ‘timeline’"
I never said that "I wasn’t an expert on the economy"
I fought for the MLK Jr. Holiday.
"I supported the Webb GI Bill"
"I received every award from every major veterans organization in America"
“I’ve supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the Katrina tragedy.”
Come on. The GOP knows that the stakes are too high. They will lie and cheat every chance they get.
Comment from Melanie
Time August 18, 2008 at 10:14 am PDT
Watch it again, and pay close attention to McCain refer to the Supreme Court Justice question before it is asked.
Comment from Claudia, Assistant Editor
Time August 18, 2008 at 10:28 am PDT
Melanie, it was perfectly reasonable to assume that in that forum the SC was to be discussed. This, on its own, does not prove a previous knowledge of the questions.
Comment from Melanie
Time August 18, 2008 at 11:52 am PDT
I suggest everyone watch him and decide for themselves. Especially the way he worded it. He asked directly about the "Which Supreme Court Justice" he wouldn’t have chose. How did he know it was that question? He asked about it when the Roe. v. Wade question came up.
BTW, 3 of the Supreme’s McSame named as ones he would NOT choose, he vote to confirm. LOL.
Comment from Lance
Time August 18, 2008 at 1:30 pm PDT
There were two things I noticed:
Why didn’t McCain come out and say he was stuck in traffic instead of let everyone believe he was, "In a Cone of Silence" when Warren asked "If the cone of Silence was comfortable? " Mccain joked that he was trying to hear through the wall. This would have been a good oportunity to explain what had happend.
McCain answered so quickly that there was time for one more question that Obama did not answer.
Comment from Simon
Time August 18, 2008 at 5:03 pm PDT
Melanie sid:
"BTW, 3 of the Supreme’s [McCain] named as ones he would NOT choose, he vote to confirm. LOL."
That’s not necessarily a contradiction. Many reasonable people believe – although I myself am dubious – that the differing institutional roles of the Senate and the President requires that Senators should be deferential to the President’s choices, exercising their advice and consent role in something akin to abuse of discretion review. According to this school of thought, only when a Presidential pick is far beyond the pale should they be voted down; Lieberman, for example, has explicitly endorsed this attitude, and the Senate Republican caucus has implicitly advanced it. How much deference is due will of course vary, but the basic premise is very widely held.
If one takes that position, and McCain has given every reason to think that he does, it follows that one would routinely vote to confirm someone that you would not yourself have nominated. Thus, McCain’s statement only becomes a contradiction if one assumes an ancillary and disputed proposition: that a Senator should not vote to confirm someone they would not have nominated.
Comment from Will Michelson
Time August 18, 2008 at 6:33 pm PDT
I agree. I will take it on Faith that Rick Warren did not mean to lie, he just had to lie becuase it would look bad if everyone knew McCain was listening to the questions. McCain did not intentionally break his promise by listening to the questions in advance, it just happened to work out that way. Maybe God just wanted McCain to have all of the questions beforehand so he could do God’s work better. Praise Jesus. Praise McCain.
Comment from MichaelS
Time August 18, 2008 at 6:35 pm PDT
McCain’s answer to the first question in my opinion made it clear he hadn’t heard that one at least. It was somewhat stilted I thought. Meg Whitman? Didn’t she support Romney?
Comment from Jason, Managing Editor
Time August 18, 2008 at 7:04 pm PDT
After any political debate, the scripts from their political opponents are as predictable as the sun rising in the east:
1) Whatever the candidate did poorly is proof positive of their complete unfitness for office in every possible way.
2) Whatever the candidate did well is proof positive that they cheated and/or are an over-prepared robot tool of their advisers.
It appears that this forum was enough like a debate to mandate use of the standardized scripts without deviation. Yawn.
Comment from Michael Merritt
Time August 19, 2008 at 12:46 am PDT
MichaelS: Interestingly, the first question is the one both candidates were given ahead of time. Warren explains this in the CNN interview.
Jason: Are we twins or something? After the forum, and seeing the response to my entry about it, I was thinking of a possible continuation to your entry on scripts, based on blog commenters.
Pingback from Black Shards, In Your Eyes, Blinding » McCain, Crosses, and Silence
Time August 19, 2008 at 4:27 am PDT
[...] it’s only natural that the left wing would try to discredit his performance by claiming that he cheated and that he [...]
Comment from Interested
Time August 19, 2008 at 10:04 am PDT
Elrod at TMV
Elrod actually spent time pondering the Coin Toss? Did Elrod ponder the fact that Wouldn’t Obama simply say – what coin toss? Just helps to enforce that TMV is still not worthy of my visiting it.
Comment from Jonathan Wilson
Time August 18, 2008 at 7:47 am PDT
McCain’s positions were already clear, he never had doubts even before this forum, so to think that he cheated somehow and that’s why he performed better is simply liberal bloggers trying to save-face after a defeat, especially because McCain went second, and especially because McCain performed well. If he had performed poorly, they wouldn’t be making this argument.
And by the way, McCain did pause and think quite a few times if you watch the video again, just not as much as slow Obama.