McCAIN'S "CONE OF SILENCE"? NOT SO MUCH

If you watched last night's CNN Presidential Forum with Pastor Rick Warren, you know that the two Presidential Candidates were interviewed separately. Barack Obama went first, followed by John McCain. Now to ensure a level playing field, Pastor Warren said this:

NOW WHAT I'VE DECIDED IS TO ALLOW FOR PROPER COMPARISON I'M GOING TO ASK IDENTICAL QUESTIONS TO EACH OF THESE CANDIDATES SO YOU CAN COMPARE APPLES TO APPLES. NOW SENATOR OBAMA IS GOING TO GO FIRST. WE FLIPPED A COIN. AND WE HAVE SAFELY PLACED SENATOR MCCAIN IN A CONE OF SILENCE.

This fact was even backed up when McCain took the stage and was asked by Warren, "Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?" To which McCain answed, "I was trying to hear through the wall." The audience laughed, but everyone (including myself) believed that McCain was indeed sequestered for Obama's 60-minute interview.

Turns out, not even close. In fact, McCain was not in the building during the first half of the Obama interview, and arrived via motorcade well into the proceedings. This of course means that McCain could have had access to a program carried on all three over-the-air networks, cable news networks and various radio stations.

But that might not even matter. You see, near the halfway point of the interview with McCain, he's asked about defining marriage between a man & woman. Then there's this exchange:

McCain: Are we going to get back to the importance of Supreme Court Justices?
Warren: We'll get to that.
McCain: All right. Okay
Warren: You got all my questions? Good.

So now he's implying McCain got all the questions in advance? So why deal with the whole "Cone of Silence" bullshit? This also draws attention to John McCain's ability to answer a three-part question on education (asked earlier to Obama) without even hearing the complete query. First, the question to Obama:

Warren: 80 percent of Americans recent poll said they believe in merit pay for teachers. Do you? I'm not asking do you think all teachers should get a raise. Do you think better teachers should be paid better? They should be paid more than poor teachers?

Now let's take a look at the transcript from McCain's interview. Notice how he "magically" answers the three parts without hearing them:

Warren: About 80 percent of America says they support merit pay for the best teachers. Now I don't want to hear your stump speech on education - -
McCain: Yes. Yes. And find bad teachers another line of work.

Does anyone else find this highly odd?

Here's Pastor Warren being asked about McCain and his sequestering. Pay close attention to the 2:50 mark:

First off, he'd only have to ask McCain if he'd heard any of the discussion - as it's kinda hard for Obama to start the program and spy. But a bigger question is if Pastor Rick did indeed ask McCain upon arriving if he'd heard anything, then why start his interview by repeating the "Cone of Silence" line? Wouldn't that be a moment for full disclosure to the American People about McCain's late arrival to the venue?