Saturday evening CNN broadcast a live appearance by both presidential candidates at Saddleback Church in California. The event was aired simultaneously on local radio stations, and transmitted over the internet. There were several pre-established conditions to the appearance of the candidates, explained by Rick Warren, pastor and sponsor of the event at Saddleback Church.
Rick Warren announced to the live television audience and church members in attendance, that each candidate would be asked the same identical questions, hearing them for the first time as they were being asked. He indicated that a coin toss determined that Barack Obama would appear first. Then to insure fairness, Rick Warren further stated, "We have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence."
That wasn't true. It was intentionally false!
Barack Obama was introduced and the questioning began. John McCain wasn't even in the building. Thirty minutes into the broadcast John McCain finally arrived at the location for the first time. During the time he was supposed to have been in "a cone of silence", he was actually in a motorcade. There is absolutely no doubt the event organizers knew John McCain wasn't even in the building at the time the broadcast started. It defies logic that Rick Warren, the pastor and host was unaware of it. That didn't preclude him from falsely stating, "We have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence." That's hardly the same thing as not even being in the building, actually being in a motorcade.
Is it possible McCain's staff had access to the internet? Of course. Is it possible McCain's staff had access to local radio stations? Of course. It's it possible McCain's staff had access to the CNN live broadcast? Of course. Would the temptation exist to tune in and gain an advantage by learning the questions in advance? Of course.
When John McCain was introduced, Rick Warren started by asking him, "Was the cone of silence comfortable?" McCain replied, "I was trying to hear through the wall." Rick Warren didn't make the announcement to the audience that John McCain wasn't even in the building, he continued to insinuate that the rules had been followed. John McCain didn't reply with an acknowledgement that he'd arrived late, and wasn't in the "cone of silence". He insinuated he'd followed the rules. It was misleading by Rick Warren, and false from John McCain.
As the McCain portion got underway, the person I was watching the event with kept commenting on how well McCain was doing in answering the questions. What made that observation relevant was the usual pattern of John McCain in live, unscripted events he's previously appeared in. We've jokingly referred to them as "senior moments", gaffs or misstatements. Frequently he becomes addled, confused, and facts become muddled, not that night. His answers were tightly phrased, concise, almost scripted, but totally out of character with what we've seen from McCain over and over in the past.
The next day one of the CNN anchors conducted an interview with Rick Warren and brought up the issue of McCain's absence during the time he was supposed to have been "safely placed in a cone of silence." Defending himself, Rick Warren claimed, "We asked him, we flat out asked him if he'd heard the questions." That was a false statement. What McCain was actually asked was the question, "Was the cone of silence comfortable?" That was the full and total questioning on that subject.
<link> Previously, during one of the Republican presidential debates before their field was narrowed, John McCain was caught cheating. It was a topic I wrote about at the time. John McCain was wearing some form of audio communication devise and answers were being whispered to him by some off-stage individual. I even provided a YouTube link in which you could actually hear the whispered prompts being furnished to McCain. That video has now been pulled from YouTube and is no longer available. But it existed, and it was cheating.
Now we have another questionable moment. We know absolutely that false statements were made about John McCain being in "a cone of silence", unable to hear his questions in advance. We know absolutely that Rick Warren made a false statement on CNN the next day defending his previous false statement. We know absolutely that John McCain has cheated in the past. We know absolutely that being fluid in verbal skills in unscripted events is out of character for John McCain. We know absolutely that the entire event is now tainted by the intentional false claims made by the event organizers at the time, and in follow-up the next day, as well as McCain's intentional mispresentation about being in "a cone of silence".
Organizers of the official upcoming presidential debates need to taking notes. There are ample reasons to take extraordinary measures to insure cheating doesn't go undetected and unchallenged. It's happened before, and there's little reason to expect future attempts won't be made. Unlike George W. Bush, I can accurately state the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." There's an established pattern from the McCain campaign to cause future organizers to be on guard. We've and almost eight years of deception in the White House, we certainly don't need a candidate that wants to cheat his way into office.
