3 Days After Saddleback, Obama Looks Even Sillier
Three days after the Presidential forum at Saddleback Church in California, revelations are still coming out that makes the Obama campaign's complaint that John McCain "cheated" look even more like the infantile schoolyard whining of a loser.
Responding to questions about whether Sen. John McCain had an unfair advantage over Sen. Barack Obama at Saturday's forum on faith at the Saddleback Church in California, a spokesman for the Rev. Rick Warren said both candidates had an advance look at a few questions.
Spokesman A. Larry Ross said the candidates had agreed that McCain would not listen to Obama's interview, which came first by a coin-flip agreement. But Ross said Warren gave them both a sense of what to expect.
Warren provided McCain and Obama with the four subject areas, Ross said -- leadership, stewardship, worldview and international compassion -- and provided them a sense of the themes he would ask about, including topics such as energy and taxes.He also offered three examples of questions he planned to ask: What is your greatest moral failure? What is America's greatest moral failure? Who are the three people you rely on for wise advice?
"Responding to questions about whether Sen. John McCain had an unfair advantage over Sen. Barack Obama at Saturday's forum on faith at the Saddleback Church in California...".
Arlington, Va.: How unprofessional was it for Andrea Mitchel and NBC News to air anonymous allegations that McCain had cheated and heard the questions in advance during Saturdays' event? Wouldn't an unbiased discussion have included denials from the McCain campaign? Instead of being a stenographer for the Obama campaign, shouldn't she have done some reporting on the subject (checking out the room, etc....) before spouting their spin on nationwide TV?Howard Kurtz: Here's the exchange:ANDREA MITCHELL: The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that--what they're putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.DAVID GREGORY: Right.ANDREA MITCHELL: He seemed so well prepared.Mitchell's defense is that she was just repeating a charge made by Obama aides. I would not have raised it without evidence, or at least without someone from the Obama camp going on the record. Otherwise you're just giving them a free shot without his campaign having to back it up.