Candidates Got Advance Look At Questions

Washington Post: Spokesman For Minister Says McCain, Obama Were Told Of Some Topics At Saddleback Forum

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Perry Bacon Jr. and Michael D. Shear.

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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?

"He wanted to give them an idea of where he wanted to go with this," Ross said in an interview.

The interviews were billed as frank conversations to which the candidates were offering off-the-cuff answers. Several times during the broadcast, Warren referenced a "cone of silence" for McCain during Obama's interview.

Ross said the mentions came "with a chuckle" and were intended to reflect the basic agreement that McCain would not listen to Obama answering his questions.

"He said that metaphorically," Ross said. "There was no whirring glass bubble like Maxwell Smart or something like that. He was speaking to the integrity of the arrangement."

Ross said a Saddleback employee disconnected the live feed from the television in the green room, where McCain stayed during most of Obama's interview.

"He literally disabled it. Even if someone tried to turn it on, it wouldn't work," Ross said. He added that he was given assurances by McCain's campaign that the senator from Arizona had not listened to the radio during the drive to the church in Lake Forest, Calif., while Obama was beginning his interview.

Despite those assurances, some bloggers raised the question about whether McCain got some notice that Obama did not, demanding to know what McCain knew and when he knew it. NBC political reporter Andrea Mitchell reported Sunday that Obama aides thought McCain "may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama."

That prompted a furious response from the McCain campaign. It issued a blistering letter to the president of NBC News yesterday, accusing the network of bias.

Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, wrote of Mitchell's report that "there is not one shred of evidence that it's true," saying that McCain was driven to the event and then was "in a green room with no broadcast feed" during Obama's appearance.

"We are extremely disappointed to see that the level of objectivity at NBC News has fallen so low that reporters are now giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain," Davis wrote to Steve Capus, in a letter the campaign released to other members of the media.

Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said the senator's aides did not watch him and tell the candidate which questions Obama was asked, either. An Obama spokesman declined to comment on the controversy.

The McCain campaign continued to refer to the controversy throughout the day. In an e-mail Monday evening on another topic, Bounds started his statement with the phrase: "After being upstaged at the Saddleback Compassion Forum . . ."

The attack on the media was not unusual for the campaign, which recently blasted the New York Times for not publishing an op-ed article written by McCain on Iraq, after it had published one by Obama. The paper's editors say they objected to how the piece was written but were open to having McCain revise it.

[TommyCraig]

Posted by tcandrews62 a
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I did? Where?
Posted by truthmatterz at 11:07 AM : Aug 20, 2008

My apologies, it wasn''t you.

[armydog2]

mccain is a cheat and not worthy to lead this country

[bigwhtpony]

LOL....McCain mopped up the floor with Barry O, and they LAMEstream media''s answer??? They had a preview of the questions....and McCain got one more than Barry.

What a crock of liberal B$~!

[bretster7]

Reuters/Zogby- ( hardly conservative sources)McCain 46% Obama 41%
Of coursw we all know polls don''t matter....unless Obama is in thelead LOL.

Now we all know why Obama doest not want to do town hall style debates......What were his words now about debating McCain "Any time, any place"? Yeah right.
The American people are finally starting to realize what an empty suit Obama really is. November can''t arrive too soon. The complete meltdown by the left will be highly entertaining. What will be the excuse then I wonder?

[dnsallday]

Like I said two days back...The stuff Mitchell let out was nothing more than a display of whine she witnessed from the Sen. NObama camp once they realized President McCain had left their 50%-Amerifrican boy wearing his azzhat. Posted by JonGood53

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How long are we going to patronize this self-styled patriot? Does anyone in the media have the guts to ask what John McCain was doing dropping bombs on civilians in Hanoi?
Think about how Americans felt about 911 and then put yourself in the mindset of the Vietnamese who suffered MILLIONS of civilian casualty thanks to the John McCains of this world.
I%u2019m sure they were plenty angry at these pilots, who never really saw the people they were killing. So yes, I%u2019m sure they mistreated prisoners. Clearly the US mistreats prisoners of the war of terror as well.
The Vietnamese created a museum documenting the atrocities they suffered.
Have you heard one word of contrition or remorse from this professional patriot who apparently was less than a standup prisoner, a lousy pilot, an extremely poor student at the Naval Academy and a total phony. His plane was shot down into a lake. They rescued him.
There was another choice.

[dnsallday]

You stated that he lied about his military career. Can you please list your references to this information. --

Posted by tcandrews62 a
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I did? Where?

[jongood53]

Like I said two days back...The stuff Mitchell let out was nothing more than a display of whine she witnessed from the Sen. NObama camp once they realized President McCain had left their 50%-Amerifrican boy wearing his azzhat.

[jongood53]

McCain is a dishonorable, shallow, mentally unstable lying and insecure man who doesn''t have the courage to go anywhere without his two nursemaids (Lieberman and Graham)
Why would anybody who cares about America support somebody like that to lead this country?
(and please only answer if you are capable of doing it without naming anybody else)
Posted by truthmatterz at 11:37 PM : Aug 19, 2008
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You wear this screen name, yet every post you offer these board is such classic left wing pinko lip service founded on nothing more than pure emotions.

BTW: You and your boy, the 50%-Amerifrican, Sen. NObama, don''t get to define the discussion, much as we all know how much you hyphenated-American could.

[chobella]

Demacrats, if you are who you say you are. We have bigger problems than the mud slinging created by American media and operation chaos founder Rush Limbauge, between Obama and McCain.The media we know sticks up for republicans.We Know that! As you know, we as the so called freeist nation of the world, America.And we never got a chance to revote an even bigger election fraud than Zimbabwe our 2000 Bush-vs-Gore. The American Supreme court ruled we were not free enough to challenge such intimidation in this country.Now get this, they released this major issue into the hands of a die hard republican advocate, Kathrine Harris! You all remember that. This is my concern right now. I know that once again if th vote is not there for republican party, they willl some how make it be there. We sould demand our election watched by UN appointtees, guns in hand! THIS IS NECESSARY! We need to have our party focus on this the down side of our elections . Let''s not play into the republican''s hands wasting precious time bickering until it''s to late.NO MORE POLLS,JUST COUNT THE VOTES!!!! STOP THE POLLS,JUST COUNT THE VOTES!!!! NO MORE POLLS,JUST COUNT THE VOTES!!!! STOP THE POLLS,JUST COUNT THE VOTES!!!!

[sjw1253]

I am glad to read this story as I have not read any blogs but saw part of the interviews replayed and had a strong feeling that McCain had some inside information about the questions as he seemed far too prepared with little to no hesitation to the questions.

As he has been running his campaign - I truly doubt that he was able to maintain any integrity regarding this issue. From this article - it sounds far too convenient for him to have had access to Obama''s interview prior to his own especially if he was on his way to the interview and Obama''s was broadcast on the radio...

Please don''t expect anyone with any objectivity and any knowledge as to how this "game" has been played so far - to be so naive as to believe he was able to contain his "curiosity" and whatever integrity he may personally possess.