Did McCain Cheat At Saddleback Forum?
The spin from Obama apologists has McCain doing better than The One at the Saddleback forum because McCain got to hear all the questions while Obama was out on stage.
The truth? McCain didn’t hear anything, and the Obama campaign is just trying to spin Obama’s poor performance.
From Byron York:
As far as the McCain side is concerned, I spoke to [McCain staffer] Charlie Black a few minutes ago. He told me McCain’s motorcade left his hotel at 5 p.m. Saturday — that’s the time Obama went on stage at Saddleback. Black told me the trip took 35 minutes, and that McCain was in the car with the Secret Service guys, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and press aide Brooke Buchanan. (Black was in another car.) Black says that McCain did not hear any of Warren’s questions or Obama’s answers during the car ride. Then: “We arrived at Saddleback and went into a holding room, which is a separate building from the main church. In the room there were four or five staff people, plus McCain, and there was no TV, no audio, no nothing. We talked through a few of the topics. We had spent time in the afternoon preparing, doing Q&A, and we did a few more questions to warm him up. At about ten til six, the advance guys came to get McCain to take him to the stage, because the handshake with Obama was a few minutes before 6 p.m. McCain never heard any of this stuff.”
These claims about cheating sound more like sour grapes from a campaign that knows they just got thumped in the first major “debate” skirmish of the campaign.
I mean, the Obama campaign knew how the forum was structured. They knew Obama was going on first. If they were worried about McCain hearing the questions maybe they should have asked for him to be sequestered? We know McCain didn’t hear anything before he went on stage, but if Obama was so concerned about it why didn’t he ask for a more formal arrangement before the forum took place?
Besides, even if McCain heard the questions while Obama was on stage that still doesn’t explain how poorly Obama did in general.
