Did McCain's Campaign Just Confirm Andrea Mitchell's Reporting?

[tannybogus]

Copy of the letter can be found here: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12594.html

The Politico has the text of a vitriolic letter in which the McCain campaign takes Andrea Mitchell and NBC to task for "giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain".

However, rather than being refuted, Mitchell's claims would appear to have been confirmed by the McCain campaign in this letter.
These are Mitchell's comments as cited in McCain's letter:

Mitchell: "The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because what they are putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well-prepared." (NBC's "Meet The Press," 8/17/08)
There are two specific claims here -- neither of which, by the way, were Mitchell's, but instead reported as the speculations of the Obama campaign. Firstly, that "McCain may not have been in the cone of silence". Secondly, that McCain "may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama". Let's take these one at a time.

"McCain may not have been in the cone of silence".

This seems to be contradicted by the letter itself. Davis writes that "The fact is that during Senator Obama's segment at Saddleback last night, Senator McCain was in a motorcade to the event and then held in a green room with no broadcast feed."

" may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama."

McCain absolutely may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. Davis tells us that McCain was in a motor vehicle during the first portion of Obama's interview. In a motor vehicle, one may use the radio, a cellphone, a Blackberry, Bluetooth Wireless, a Slingbox, and perhaps a satellite TV feed. Whether McCain actually used any of those devices, we have no idea. But he absolutely had the ability to use them, which is all that Mitchell had reported.

Also, note Davis's oddly-specific language to describe the situation in the green room. He says that the green room lacked a "broadcast feed". However, it presumably had cellphone and Internet access. If you want to get really technical, it perhaps also could have had a CCTV feed, which might be distinguished from a "broadcast feed".

This is an exceptionally bizarre response by the McCain campaign. Note, once more, that the McCain campaign has not refuted the substance of the reports. In fact, they seem to have confirmed substantial portions of them. But they are attempting to distract from the situation by saying that neither the media nor the Obama campaign has the standing to ask the question.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

McConehead of silence!:wtf:

[stark6935]

1. K&R

I don't know that he listened, but he gave them exactly what they wanted... You could tell he just blurted out whatever he thought was what they were looking to hear. He got out of the answer with his first marriage so easily it makes me sick.

[Lex]

2. He should just say "I didn't hear anything or know the questions in advance."

He doesn't say that.

There is a reason he doesn't say that.