“Chief, would you believe I lied in a church…”

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It seems we have a bit of a scandal in the wake of  the Saddleback Civil Forum hosted by Pastor Rick Warren on Saturday.  According to Pastor Warren, "We flipped a coin" and Senator Obama will go first, "and we have safely placed Senator McCain in a cone of silence." CNN.com – Transcripts  Arizona’s own version of Maxwell Smart in the "cone of silence"?

Well, it turns out it wasn’t true and the cone of silence didn’t work any better for McCain than it did for Maxwell Smart.  First reported by Andrea Mitchell (NBC) on Meet the Press Meet the Press and by CNN, and later confirmed by other news organizations such as ABC and the New York Times Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn’t in a ‘Cone of Silence’ – NYTimes.com, Senator McCain was not in "a cone of silence" while Obama was being interviewed by Pastor Warren.  McCain had not yet left his hotel and was in a motorcade to the church for some half hour.

McCain adviser Charlie Black told CNN, "We were in motorcade until 5:30 p.m. ET; then a holding room in another building…"

ABC News’ Ron Claiborne, traveling with the McCain campaign, reports that McCain senior adviser Charlie Black would not say whether people around McCain while he was en route to Rick Warren’s forum had access to blackberries and cell phones from which they could have tipped off Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about the questions.

"Cone of silence" controversy grows – McCain refusing to directly answer the question. More from ABC

So when it was McCain’s turn, this was the opening exchange with Pastor Warren CNN.com – Transcripts:

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. Good to be here.

WARREN: My first question, was the cone of silence comfortable you were in just now?

MCCAIN: I was trying to hear through the wall.

Note that McCain avoided answering the question directly. I would be shocked – shocked! – if campaign aids to a presidential candidate were not fully equipped with a blackberry, I-phone, cell phone, laptop computer with wireless Internet access, and the vehicle they were traveling in was not equipped with satellite TV and radio. This is the modern era of campaigning for godssake.  Do you really expect me to believe that McCain and his entire campaign staff were incommunicado and not listening to the broadcast? Please, only a partisan hack or a fool would believe such utter nonsense. Campaign aids get paid to do this. Read the transcript yourself and find the "tells" that McCain knew the questions.

And what was the McCain campaign response to getting caught?  Despite Assurances, McCain Wasn’t in a ‘Cone of Silence’ – NYTimes.com:

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.

That’s right.  Once again McCain pulled out his POW talisman to ward off any questions about his honor, character, or truthfulness ("straight talk") when those supposed traits are contradicted by the facts.  Campaign manager Rick Davis even sent a letter to NBC asking for a meeting with Steve Capus, president of NBC News, to protest what the campaign called signs that the network is "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the presidential race."  McCain protests NBC coverage – Mike Allen – Politico.com  Mrs. Greenspan (Andrea Mitchell) has always been one of McCain’s biggest sycophant fans in the McMedia.  This is a tried and true tactic of the GOP to complain about the unfairness of the mythical "liberal media" to set them up as a bogeyman for conservatives, and to intimidate reporters into not asking questions.

I am never intimidated. There were other lies and half-truths that McCain told in Pastor Warren’s church to his congregation, and Americans watching at home.  Let’s examine just a few, shall we.

The very first question: "who are the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?"  McCain answered General David Petraeus, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), and Meg Whitman, the CEO of E-Bay and a campaign adviser.

In response to McCain’s latest invocation of his name, Rep. Lewis said in a statement "Sen. McCain and I are colleagues in the US Congress, not confidantes. He does not consult me. And I do not consult him."  MotherJones Blog: John Lewis: John McCain’s Wise Man?  Oops!

The second question: "What’s been your greatest moral failure?"  McCain answered "My greatest moral failing — and I have been a very imperfect person — is the failure of my first marriage. It’s my greatest moral failure."  As Maxwell Smart would say "missed it by that much."

John McCain and his first wife Carol did not just grow apart due to irreconcilable differences.  John McCain was unfaithful to his wife and engaged in a series of extramarital affairs with other women, including his present wife Cindy. Blog For Arizona: Whatever happened to the first Mrs. McCain?  He also took out a marriage license to Cindy, with whom he was cohabiting, while still legally married to Carol (his divorce was not yet final). McCain’s broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship – Los Angeles Times  Some might call that bigamy. Ronald and Nancy Reagan were not pleased with him. This is lying by omission – leaving out relevant facts that Pastor Warren’s congregation and most Americans do not know and that would likely color their opinion in a negative light.

In response to a question near and dear to fundamentalist Evangelical Christians, abortion, McCain responded "I have a 25-year pro-life record in the Congress [and] the Senate."  Oh, "missed it by that much." McCain has at times publicly supported choice during his career, while privately opposing it in a letter to the National Right to Life in 1999.  During the GOP primary debates in 2000 and in April 2007, McCain said he would change the GOP platform to permit exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Now he is saying he will not change the GOP platform. ABC News: McCain Abortion Flip-Flop

There was another whopper that other bloggers have noted which I will address in a separate post. If you find others in the transcript that you can document, let me know.

The point is that the corporate media should be doing this kind of fact checking and holding McCain accountable for his lies and half-truths, while sitting in a church no less.  Instead, all the talking heads had to talk about after the forum were style points. Lies apparently do not matter to the corrupt McMedia.