McCain Campaign Takes the Hard Questions
| Wed Oct. 1, 2008 12:17 PM PDT
Moments ago, Rudy Giuliani took three questions on a McCain campaign conference call for the national press corps.
The first question was about the bailout. It was from a staffer from TownHall.com, a conservative website, but the question itself was not glaringly pro-McCain. Nothing notable.
The second question was from someone named Chuck Pardee. Pardee asserted that Tina Fey and many reporters make their living "embellishing the facts." After criticizing the press for treating Sarah Palin unfairly, Pardee concluded*:
"Do you think embellishing the facts is actually what the concerned voter is after? And specifically, Joe Biden seems to embellish and forget facts just to kind of impress people but when you take Sarah Palin she seems to impress others with her quick study without embellishing the facts. In other words do you think people want a straight shooter or do they want the stuff and fluff?"
Surprisingly, Giuliani said that the American people preferred the straight-shooter and John McCain just so happens to be one. Pardee, by the way, is the "founder and president" of Newsbull.com. He has donated the maximum $2,300 to McCain. It's a shock he didn't ask a tougher question. (And if you're wondering, yes, the McCain campaign knows the affiliations of reporters before they are permitted to ask a question on these conference calls.)
The third and final question came from a woman named Sherry Riggs (sp?). Her affiliation was not announced. She took exception to Giuliani's claim from earlier in the call that Obama had never managed a budget. A hard-hitting question? Not really. Riggs insisted that Obama had indeed managed a budget "with [William] Ayers" when they sat on a board together years ago. According to Riggs, Obama "always spent the money on educational programs that were socialistic in their agenda or their genre."* And, in a real shock, Obama apparently had a $450 billion treasure chest to work with. That seemed a bit high to me, but I'm sure the McCain campaign would only allow legitimate professionals to ask questions on these calls.
Oh, and by the way, Giuliani agreed that more scrutiny ought to be applied to Obama's "hidden" history with Ayers. And with that, the call ended.
* Questions updated with help from the Huffington Post.
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Comments
Submitted by Doctor Biobrain (not verified) on Wed Oct. 1, 2008 2:40 PM PDT.
It's bad enough that these people want to lose, but to humiliate themselves like this... It's just not normal. Giuliani really should have insisted on a more realistic script.
There needs to be a name for these kind of questions, where the question is actually a stronger attack than the answer.
What passes for journalism in today's right wing world is truly pathetic.The type of questions that McCain surrogates choose to 'answer' has gone from softball to T-ball. What else should we expect from ol Rudi, noun, verb, 911 Giuliani?
So is Pardee an actual, as well as literal whore, like that guy who used to moonlight as a White House press corps member, asking stupid sycophantic questions of Scott McClellan, all the while pursuing his main gig which was, in fact, whoring (he had his own website where he solicited johns and everything). What was his name? I'm drawing a complete blank.
Submitted by EndTheEcho (not verified) on Wed Oct. 1, 2008 4:17 PM PDT.
If these sort of lobs are going to come, why not let Palin the person on the ticket, field them?
I hear they are coming out with a new children's book, Where's Sarah?
Is this true? Can the McCain campaign realy be reduced to Jeff Gannon redux press conferences? If so, this is a huge story. Since the press has to some extent stopped taking crap from the McCain campaign, I hope they will explain this to the voting public.
Sherry may have been this woman
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/HeadingRight/eeevil-conservative
