The issue would die a natural death if McCain made a simple statement on the record saying he did not get any information from any source relating to any of the content during the hour Obama was onstage. This would resolve it for me.

GIVE ME A BREAK.
why was he 30 min late for the most important event so far??
why couldn’t he follow the simple pre-decided rules?
is he a CHEATER, or COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE?
lying cheater = irresponsible slacker imo

Of course Sekulow will defend McCain just like most of the talking heads defended the many neocons whom have since been found guilty, indicted, jailed, or what have you. Sekulow is one of them. And I wouldn’t expect the GOPers to play fair because they have demonstrated a willful disobedience of the very law of the land for the last 8 years, so why do anything different for a public forum?
And of course they calim that McCain carried the night, just like the left claims Obama did. But McCain has a few things going against him anyway. His complete and repeated ignorance of the ethnic groups in Iraq. His promise of more war. His confessed ignorance of computers and the economy. His age. His temper. His lack of support of the veterans on his voting basis.
I’ll take an intelligent man over another Bushie any day of the week. And McCain is just another Bushie.

I’m with Rob. The last 8 years have shown us that the fascists, or Republicans (whichever you prefer), are willing to do anything to remain in power. Play fair they haven’t. Considering the things Rob references, I wouldn’t even think of voting McCain, or McAbel for that matter. Obama has done a nice job of handling himself in this matter, I thought, considering all that’s been thrown at him.
Bible believers would do very wisely right now to remember Matthew 6: 5-6 and keep their faith/prayer/genuflecting…TO THEMSELVES, FOR THEMSELVES. Only the radical religious right wants to keep hearing the frenzied pitch of religious rhetoric, hour after hour.
This whole campaign trail seems to be based on “who prays the most/who prays the best”, if you will. I DON’T CARE. Thus, I’m voting Libertarian, as I have for years, I want to see some change for a change.

Let’s give Senator McCain–who I wouldn’t vote for in a hundred years–the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t a TV with CNN or Fox blaring in his green room. Let’s even assume he just happened to be in peak form.
I’m still not impressed.
So you have to make $5 million a year to be rich? Funny thing, one of the news reports today (I think it was the ABC Nightly News, but I wasn’t taking notes) interviewed a couple at Saddleback who said they certainly needed more than $250,000 a year to make all their debt payments. I didn’t think Rick Warren preached prosperity gospel, but I can certainly see how McCain would appeal to those who follow it.
And there was that comment with all the certaintly that life begins at conception. OK, so that’s his belief. But where’s the consideration that more than one person in a pregnancy has a right to life? And as long as he’s addressing all those Bible believers, why doesn’t McCain recall the verses to the effect of “even before I was in my mother’s womb, You knew me.” It seems to me that Senator Obama’s answer was more appropriately humble even if it didn’t press most of the Saddleback buttons.
And “the failure of my first marriage” seems awfully brief for a confession of sin. But I was really looking for something on the lines of repenting of support for a messy war that, among other horrors, has decimated the Iraqi Christian community. But Democrats want to tar another adulterer. Seems to me to be the wrong sin to be looking for signs of repentance, forgiveness, and growth.
I will say one thing about Iraq. Show me the national leader who struggled before God about his or her complicity in war, and I just might cast the first vote in my life for their party.

McCain may not be under any obligation to tell us who he was talking to, and we are under no obligation to believe he didn’t cheat.
Regardless, McCain said what the audience wanted to hear, it’s too bad he’s a chump for slogans, with no plan for real solutions to our country’s problems.
It’s easy to say ‘defeat it’ and tell stories about Vietnam again, and again, and again. At least Obama has an intellect and maybe he didn’t answer as concisely as McCain, but that’s because 1)McCain is just shouting out slogans with no resolutions, and 2)war and foreign relations are not clear cut issues. They should be discussed and thought out and all options should be explored before action takes place. There is no two word answer to these issues as McCain would have you believe. If he wants to stay in this war, and start other wars, let his butt go fight!

With the information coming forward about McCain’s “cross in the sand” story, it would not surprise me a bit to find out he had advance notice on the questions.
It will be interesting to see how things play out over the course of the next few days.

it was mccain and ranger rick who made the big deal out of the “cone of silence,” and even when they both knew that mccain was not only not in a cone of silence but was in a position to do exactly what said cone was advertised to prevent.
sure, it is pure speculation as to whether or not mccain lied about hearing the questions to obama but it is not speculation that mccain lied about being in said cone right out of the shoot.
that is a very solid conclusion based on mccain’s and his campaigns own statements.
once again, the republican gets away with dishonest behavior that would take down a democrat’s candidacy in the blink of an eye.
excuse me while i spit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/us/politics/18mccain.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=rick%20warren%20cone%20of%20silence&st=cse&oref=slogin
Senator John McCain was not in a “cone of silence” on Saturday night while his rival, Senator Barack Obama, was being interviewed at the Saddleback Church in California.
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, the author of the best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life.”
The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied.

http://www.randomevangelist.net
Dr. Jay, I do not think Sen. McCain should have been locked up in a room for an hour, but certainly there needs to be some accountability to ensure that the questions are not being heard by the other candidate when being interviewed. I do not know in fact whether or not Sen. McCain heard the questions or not, but if so, why is there a need for a moderator at all? If people are not going to play fair, (and mind you, this is a purely hypothetical question), why not just give the questions to the candidates in advance and time limit their answers in the performance. Since the debate is held by a conservative in front of a conservative audience at Saddleback, even though I am a fellow conservative, in order to have an evenhanded debate, their needs to be a check and balances to guarantee equal access to the questions by both candidates alike.