Via the NYT: Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn’t in a ‘Cone of Silence’
The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied.
Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said on Sunday night that Mr. McCain had not heard the broadcast of the event while in his motorcade and heard none of the questions.
“The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous,” Ms. Wallace said.
Two things strike me:
1) Just because McCain did well is hardly prima facie evidence that he heard the questions.
2) Just because he was a prisoner of war isn’t prima facie evidence that he wouldn’t cheat (really, the campaign had better watch it, or it will overplay that card).
Having said that, CNN reports that McCain was not in the building in the pre-arranged waiting room when the questioning of Obama started. As such, it is possible that McCain heard some of the questions asked of Obama (assuming the motorcade had satellite radio and could hear the Fox News feed, although it may have been broadcast on local AM or FM, making it easier to hear–I am not sure about that).
That the appearance was given, by Warren’s reference to a “cone of silence” that McCain was in the building and isolated from electronic media, is uncontestable as Warren mentioned said cone at least twice (see 538.com for details). As such, there is at least an image problem here.
And yes, one presumes that having some advance notice of the questions would ne helpful (perhaps even moreso knowing what one’s opponent said). Still, it seems rather unlikely that McCain rushing over to Saddleback Church in a motorcade and then getting into the building to get ready to be on live TV would have had time to seriously consider all that information even if he had heard some of the broadcast. That isn’t to say that had he listened that that wouldn’t be a dishonorable thing to do.
This will, of course, be the flap of the day, as there will be an ongoing attempt to get McCain to “confess” or to catch him in an inconsistency.
Regardless of all of that, I watched almost all of the forum and liked the format, on balance, and thought that both candidates comported themselves well and that Warren asked mostly decent questions. It many ways it was better than a debate, as the two candidates had to simply answer rather than try and get zingers and rehearsed one-liners into the proceedings.
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August 18th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Come on now. If there’s one thing we learned from Get Smart, it is this: the Cone of Silence NEVER works!
August 18th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Excellent point!
August 18th, 2008 at 11:29 am
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August 18th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Will overplay that card?
August 18th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
@MSS - Ok, so I was trying to be polite.
Seriously, though, I do think that there is probably some room in the public consciousness for the bio business even now–although not in ham-fisted ways like the above.
August 18th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I think it’s possible for the McCain campaign to overplay his status as a veteran and if they really want to get him elected they need to be careful how often they play that card.
BUT - I do actually see a connection in this usage, because the implication goes beyond the actual cheating. It is an attack on McCain’s honor, integrity, and discipline. If you call someone a cheater, you are attacking these qualities in that person, and since the evidence that McCain “cheated” (not sure if I even like the choice of words) is weak (it stinks to me of he-said, she-said), really this is an attempt by the Obama campaign to chip away at the image that McCain’s campain is trying to project, which is McCain as a man of honor and inegrity and doing what’s right in the face of hardship.
In the face of attacks on honor and integrity, it is a viable defense (to me) for the McCain campaign to remind people about what McCain went through and how he behaved during his imprisonment (refusing early release and special treatment from the enemy and so on). These things do speak volumes about a person’s character, integrity, and sense of honor - and they are things that are true (McCain really did behave himself in an admirable way as a POW).
The danger, as has been mentioned, is in overusing his ex-POW status, and talking about it to the point that people just shut it out.
Not sure we’ve reached that point yet. . .
August 18th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
These false accusations of cheating by the Obama camp just shows what a lack of character these sore losers have. Obama has been getting a free pass from the beginning of the primaries. Obama looked like the rank inexperienced amateur that he is in the Saddleback debate … while McCain looked decisive and competent. The election is only about 70 days from now, and if Obama hasn’t already come up with positions on these crucial questions by now, he is certainly not qualified to be President of the United States. Crying and accusations of cheating because Obama lost the debate, only makes Obama look smaller and less deserving of the office.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Megan McCardle has a good take on this subject:
August 19th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
And John Sargent has a really good reply to Megan
(http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/obama_and_the_netroots_looking.php#comment-981116):
“To recap:
1. McCain promised to be in the cone of silence. He broke that promise.
2. When asked about the cone of silence by Rick Warren, the pastor of the church whose debate he was attending, McCain lied about having broken his promise to be in the cone of silence.
3. When exposed as having broken his promise to be in the cone of silence and lying about it on national television, McCain’s campaign insisted he could not have cheated because he is a war hero, notwithstanding the fact that he had just been caught breaking a promise and lying about it on national television to man of faith in his own church.
4. Whether he cheated or not, it is a fact that McCain had the opportunity to cheat.
Isn’t this obviously a loss for McCain? This doesn’t look like straight-talk to me. Frankly, I didn’t get to catch the Saddleback debate when it first happened, and I watched it after hearing McCain may have cheated. His performance didn’t look so good when I suspected the performer was a cheating liar.”
August 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
From Mark Kleiman
(http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/obama_and_the_netroots_looking.php#comment-981259):
“Megan, you’re conflating two points here.
First, did McCain actually cheat, in the sense that one of his staffers listened to Obama and sent another staff an email with some of the questions? As you say, we can’t know the answer to that question. (And no, cell phone records couldn’t prove McCain’s innocence, unless somehow you could know that you had all of the cell numbers.)
Second, did McCain deliberately break the rules that were supposed to make it impossible for him to cheat? There the answer is simple: Yes, he did. He hadn’t even left his hotel when Warren started to question Obama.
It’s like a dealer refusing to cut the cards: maybe he’s not cheating, but you have only his word for it.”
August 20th, 2008 at 8:12 am
The thing I found most mystifying about McCain was his response to the question about which “three wisest people” he would “rely on heavily in an administration.”
His list included Democratic Rep. John Lewis. Interestingly, reporters asked Lewis if he has been contacted by McCain for advice in the past and he denied having any significant contact with the Senator.
If Lewis is one of the “three wisest people” according to McCain, why hasn’t he ever been asked for advice on pressing issues by McCain? On what policy issues does McCain plan to consult the liberal Democrat, if elected?
The Lewis response was one of the weirdest moments of the forum.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:02 pm
[...] so on Monday it was ridiculous to accuse McCain on cheating at the Saddleback Church forum because he was a POW. [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 am
[...] despite some excited reports last night of Obama-Bayh ‘08 buttons and bumper stickers, it has been announced that Obama has picked Joe Biden as his running [...]