According to Candidate McCain's official blog (http://tinyurl.com/63f22q), Senator McCain was not actually isolated in a "Cone of Silence", as was announced with a wink and tongue-in-cheek by Mr. Warren, the pastor of Saddleback, who directed questions to both candidates. "Cone of Silence" is a reference to a fictional device used on the comedy sitcom "Get Smart!", in which secret agents would enter a hooded contraption meant to completely ensure that their classified conversations would be unheard by the outside world. The humor ensued from the issue that the device never worked as described -- the users had difficulty hearing one another, but outside passers-by could hear everything they said perfectly.

McCain's blog entry characterizes the Obama camp as "whining" about the fact that McCain was not actually isolated and in view of his readiness with answers to Mr. Warren's questions.

Spokemen from McCain's camp told CNN reporters that McCain did not listen to the questions in advance, nor did he get them from any of his staff beforehand, and expressed angrily that insinuations of cheating by McCain, "a former prisoner of war", were outrageous.

Mr. Warren started the second half of the forum by asking McCain, “Now, my first question: Was the Cone of Silence comfortable that you were in just now?” McCain responded with “I was trying to hear through the wall.”

All things being equal, McCain had the opportunity to "cheat" by obtaining the questions beforehand, but we have his word that he did not, and suggestions that he may have cheated by his opponent's side are being called "sour grapes" and "outrageous".

If the roles had been reversed, and Obama had been chosen to go second, had been in a motorcade instead of the announced "Cone of Silence" with the opportunity to obtain questions and prepare answers in advance, and virtuously denied cheating when charged with it by McCain's side, how would the smack talk go? About the same? Or would the accusations come out sharper and dirtier, and the protestations of innocence be more reserved and refrain from terms like "whining"?

Do you all think that either candidate is too honest to "cheat" in this sense, by dishonestly pre-preparing answers to forum questions that are supposed to be a surprise? Both too honest? Neither? Or just one?

How could a former prisoner of war possibly cheat or lie to anyone?

I think, perhaps, Obama got his ass whipped and the "McCain must have cheated" response is simply the standard left-wing response to whenever they don't come out on top of an issue or an election.

Since Liberals believe they have birthright to govern, anything that upsets their applecart must be rationalized away as cheating by the "other side" whether the excuse is purloined debate questions, or voter intimidation, or rigged voting machines, or whatever salves their feelings and avoids forcing them to consider the possibility that maybe they lost because THEY LOST!

That is one of the dumbest things I think I've ever heard you say. They lost because they lost? Isn't that a bit redundant?

I'm going to fix this for you(doesn't mean I agree with it though)...

"Since Liberals believe they have birthright to govern, anything that upsets their applecart must be rationalized away as cheating by the "other side" whether the excuse is purloined debate questions, or voter intimidation, or rigged voting machines, or whatever salves their feelings and avoids forcing them to consider the possibility that maybe they lost because were the lesser of the two parties(or because they didn't get the votes)!"

Saying they lost because they lost just sounds infantile.

Ok, Ray, you haven't answered my question about the reversal... what would your stance be if Obama was in McCain's shoes?

Also, do you think either or both candidates are too honest to take advantage of the opportunity to cheat?

I'm just not sure how to answer because, quite frankly, I can't imagine The Chose One BEING in McCain's shoes.

As for who is "honest" enough not to take advantage of a situation, I think they both have campaign people whose job it is to get their candidate elected to office. Whether any one did or not is the question, isn't it?

If it were reversed and the McCain camp had the audacity to accuse Obama of cheating, then the McCain camp would be labeled as racist, bigoted rednecks who have guns and hate blacks, gays, and Jews and they they spend their Sunday afternoons shooting up liberal churches and lynching people 100 years in the past. The accusation would be proof positive that McCain was a pillowcase wearing cross burner hell bent on keeping a brother down.

Obama, it would be said, did not cheat at all since he, being a disadvantaged minority, had a right to know the questions in advance. Questions, by the way, which were obviously made by angry white men and designed to make Obama look like a dumb watermelon head as they did not relate to his Afro-American heritage and life experience. Besides that, Obama would have had to get the questions in advance in case he were shot at a gas station on the way to the church, that McCain was shooting up.

The response to that would be that Obama cheated because he's black and all blacks cheat because they aren't smart enough to get ahead by legitimate means.

Then it will be that McCain is not a racist because his best friend is black, or wears black, or likes the Fresh Prince- who we all know is a product of the Jew controlled mass media designed to lull white people into a false sense of security and lessen the fear of a black planet so that when the Jews take over, we will not resist the black gestapo, that is under unknowing shadow control of das Juden, when they come to integrate us into the future society of racial harmony.

And that, along with it being racist to not let Obama go first and general dhimmitude toward Muslims, is why McCain had to go on second to begin with.

Or something like that. Yeah.

Lake Forrest Cali is real Obama territory? ...LOL! This is the land where Afrikans migrated...

"Members of the McCain campaign staff, who flew here Sunday from California, said Mr. McCain was in his motorcade on the way to the church as Mr. Obama was being interviewed by the Rev. Rick Warren."

Clearly, Mr. McCain was not in a 'cone of silence'. Did he listen and watch? Who knows.. I'm more vexed by the Chistmas Story lies than the possible cheating..

the conservative blog site, free republic, outed McCain's little dance of plagarized mis-memory in 2005 .. citing the 'cross in the dirt' story is by World-famous Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

"On one particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much for him. He saw no reason to continue his struggle, no reason to keep on living. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.

Leaving his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to other prisoners.

As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible. Solzhenitsyn slowly rose to his feet, picked up his shovel, and went back to work. Outwardly, nothing had changed. Inside, he had received hope."

This story appears in Solzhenitsyn's book 'The Gulag Archipelago'. Written between 1958 and 1968, it was published in the West in 1973.

McCain's first plagarized moment is found in McCain's own book, "Character is Destiny," (excerpt courtesy of free republic).. "In Part Four of his new book, McCain writes about his role as chaplain for Christmas service in his Vietnamese prison, and about a guard who snuck in at night to loosen the ropes that bound McCain, and then snuck in in the morning to tighten them before other guards could notice.

The guard said nothing while performing this kindness, but one time, in the yard, "I became aware of him as he walked near me and then, for a moment, stood very close to me. He did not speak or smile or look at me. He just stared at the ground and then, very casually, he used his foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We both stood looking at his work for a minute until he rubbed it out and walked away."


and here is what McCain said during the Saddleback debate

McCain "It was Christmas Day, we were allowed to stand outside of our cell for a few minutes, and those days we were not allowed to see or communicate with each other although we certainly did. And I was standing outside for a few minutes, outside my cell. He came walking up. He stood there for a minute and with his handle [sic] on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. For a minute there, there was just two Christians worshiping together. I'll never forget that moment."

He is a liar and a cheat.

Which, of course, presumes that in 2,000 years nobody has ever thought of drawing a cross in the dirt except one time. It's never happened before, hasn't happened since.

But isn't Obama Afrikans-American?

I get so confused.

More white Afrikaans fled to South Orange County California following the end of apartheid than any other place in the world....for a reason.

but how many in those 2,000 years wrote about it in terms of prison camps... ?those darn conservative republicans at free republic also take into account what a great fan of author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn McCain is.. having publically made that known several times (quick web search)

After all... how easy it is to tell different stories of your personal experience... right?



There's a 2,000 year history of lying and cheating. Therefore McCain is a liar and a cheat.

see I can do it too.

True that! Sort of like Barack Obama's telling about how his most gut-wrenching decision was opposing the Iraq War and risking all sorts of political reprisals. Of course, he's talking about when he was an unknown state senator from a liberal district in liberal Illinois back in 2002 when the general talk wasn't about how the U.S. was going to walk of Iraq, but how we had to be careful of Saddam Hussein's poison gas. Political risk my ass!

This was two months before he declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. However, later in 2004, two days before his speech before the Democratic convention Obama was on NBC's "Meet the Press."

July 25, 2004 interview on "Meet the Press," two days before his keynote address to the Democratic convention made him a national figure. During that interview, Obama had this colloquy with Tim Russert:

MR. RUSSERT: . . . The nominee of your party, John Kerry, the nominee for vice president, John Edwards, all said [Saddam] was an imminent threat. They voted to authorize George Bush to go to war. How could they have been so wrong and you so right as a state legislator in Illinois and they're on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees in Washington?

STATE REP. OBAMA: Well, I think they have access to information that I did not have. And what is absolutely clear is that John Kerry said, "If we go into war, let's make sure that we do it right. Let's make sure that our troops are supported. Let's make sure that we have the kind of coalition that's necessary to succeed." And the execution of what was a difficult choice to make was something that all of us have to be concerned about. And moving forward, the only way that we're going to be able to succeed is if, I think, we have an administration led by John Kerry that's going to allow us to consolidate the relationships with our allies that bring about investment in Iraq.

Tim Russert: But if you had been a senator at that time, you would have voted not to authorize President Bush to go to war?

Obama: I would have voted not to authorize the president given the facts as I saw them at that time.

Russert: So you disagree with John Kerry and John Edwards?

Obama: At that time, but, as I said, I wasn't there and what is absolutely clear as we move forward is that if we don't have a change in tone and a change in administration, I think we're going to have trouble making sure that our troops are secure and that we succeed in Iraq.

Russert: We can't withdraw the troops immediately?

Obama: I don't think so.

According to Obama this was the time when being FOR the war was the "difficult choice to make" and being against the war as he had been was simply a case of not having sufficient information as the heroes in the party leadership had. So at least when it was politically expedient to do so Barack Obama could toss gut-wrenching decisions out the window and suck up to the party leadership when required to do so.

See? It's okay for McCain to be a liar and a plagarist, as long as Obama does something bad too.

Had this been something that actually happened to McCain, you would think he'd have mentioned it before in his many writings about his life and memories and wartime experiences.

But he didn't. So I must conclude some speechwriter put it in his speech, McCain hadn't read The Gulag Archipelago, and just thought it was a good story to tell.