Cone of Absurdity

Barack Obama and John McCain participated in a forum at the Saddleback Church with Rick Warren (of "Purpose Driven Life" fame) to answer questions about politics, leadership and God. Obama performed decently, but it was McCain who outperformed all expectations while appearing vigorous, succinct and straight-forward. Thus, since Obama was 'beaten' in this exchange, it was time for his supporters to light the Barack-Signal and call for the most absurd, belittling attack to be launched. And here it is: McCain violated the 'Cone of Silence'. It not only sounds like the name of a low-budget sci-fi movie from the 80's, it is also an unfortunate and pathetic attempt to undermine John McCain's strong performace and attack his credibility and character. NBC's Andrea Mitchell started this all by reporting that some "Obama people" were questioning whether McCain had been able to hear the questions Warren asked Obama, thus explaining how prepared and capable he was in asnwering them when his turn came around. There was a room with no audio or video feed which was suposed to hold whichever candidate went second so that the questions would not be known in advance. McCain was in this "cone of silence" for the final two-thirds of Obama's time on stage. For the first third, McCain was not in the green room, but was instead en route in a secret service motorcade. McCain inists he had no knowledge of the questions, his staff and campaign insist he was not watching the forum while in the car, and there is no evidence from either during the debate or after that suggests McCain knew what questions were coming. The only reason this claim has risen is because McCain did so well. This charge underscores the absolute arrogance of the Obama campaign by charging that the only way McCain could outperform Obama is if he cheated. This is character assassination at work and its wrong. Considering that Barack Obama and his supporters have spent 2 years lecturing voters to ignore all the baseless claims and accusations levelled at him, its discouraging to see them so eager to spread similar charges against McCain.