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Saddleback--Warren's honesty about the rules
Here is how Warren spelled out the rules for the Civil Forum. He never defined the cone of silence but stated that McCain was safely placed there. The questions he presented were introduced and stated differently and asked in different order and in a different one. Lot's of social chatter in between with a different tone for each candidate. BTW even if McCain did not "hear" the Obama piece, he could easily have been giving the questions--at least in general terms. And if you decide ahead of time to pander and filibuster at something like this, how hard would it be to do figure out what the questions were likely to be? And if someone can find Warren telling McCain that he should not give his stump speech as he was trying to form his answer please let me know. So please don't tell me that Warren is a good interviewer--the man was in a flop sweat and could hardly breathe.Now, what I 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. Now, each of the interviews will be segmented into four different sections. We’re going to look at four different things, and the number of questions answered in each segment will depend on how succinct the senator is.
Comments (5)
Still have to learn how to insert text--the Warren quote is at the end and not boxed. Sorry about that.
August 18, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Highlight the text and hit the blcokquote button.
It seemed to me that Warren way more permissive in allowing McCain to answer with his "stump speeches" than he was with Obama, who he specifically asked to spare the stump speeches. I couldn't bear to watch most of McCain's time, but what I watched was heavy on the stump speeches.
Anybody else notice the "decisive v nuanced" media echo, propagated by the vacuous talking hairdos.
August 18, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The MSM pundits all get weak in the knees with an angry warmonger like McCain. Fun to watch GOP tools like Jake Tapper swoon whenever McCain threatens WWIII.
Even better is that McCain camp is always whining and bashing the press. Like the NYT, which despite his constant attacks on them, still bends over backwards to accomodate. I guess they like it when pols slap them around a bit. The worse he treats them, the more they endorse him.
Don't even get me started on Maureen Dowd's bizarre fondness for mean bullies. Maybe some father issues there.
August 18, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Zydecogirl, as someone who has read the transcripts and compared the answers side-by-side, I can say the questions were not asked in a different order. Obama answered fewer "sidebar" questions. He gave longer, substantive answers to the primary question Warren asked.
McCain was aske the same primary questions in the same order. McCain gave far more "canned" answers -- short replied -- except for when he went off the reservation and told his Vietnam anecdotes.
Warren's somewhat adlibbed intros to his questions varied slightly. For example, with Senator Obama, he seemed to stress "the 40 million abortions" number in his lead-in. He did not introduce the questions to John McCain exactly as he did to Obama. I will recheck the transcript, but I do recall Warren said he did not want the "stump speech" at least once to McCain, and possibly twice to Obama.
And we do know now, that Warren was either aware and chose to perpetuate the notion that McCain was in the "cone of silence," or Warren did not know prior to going on stage that McCain had not entered the building. We also know that Warren has given conflicting reports on whether he supplied none, the first, the first two questions to the candidates. But Warren also contradicts himself with words he said onstage to McCain about McCain having gotten "all" of Warren's questions.
We are entitled to be pissed off at something that was not fully as advertised. But let us make sure we are dead accurate with the events, the timeline, the players and the charges.
August 18, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's OK, cute&smart, Obama did fine.
August 18, 2008 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
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