Yes - I'm calling out Pastor Rick Warren. Because last night, on Larry King Live, Warren dismissed as "bogus" concerns about McCain having prior knowledge of specific questions. He asserted that there's no chance that McCain could have gotten questions during his drive to the forum because "the Secret Service would have reported it". Why are Warren and many in the media assiduously ignoring very clear evidence that John McCain knew at least one of the questions ahead of time? Do they expect us to believe them or should we believe our lying eyes?
h/t to jbalazs for the excellent video
Let's make it viral.
[transcripts plus video from Warren's appearance on Larry King Live after the jump]
Rick Warren: All right. Let’s Talk about Education. America ranks nineteenth in high school graduations, but we’re first in incarceration. Everybody says they want more accountability in schools.
John McCain: Uh-huh.
Rick Warren: About eighty percent of America says they support merit pay for the best teachers. Now I don’t want to hear your stump speech on education.
John McCain: YES. YES. AND FIND BAD TEACHERS ANOTHER LINE OF WORK.
(transcript)
Last night on Larry King Live, instead of coming clean with the American people, Pastor Rick Warren simply piled more b.s. on the already stinking pile of dung:
Larry King: Now, obviously, Rick Warren would never tell a mistruth.
Did you not know that he was in an automobile?
Pastor Rick Warren: I didn't know they had put -- hadn't put him into the Green Room yet. No, I didn't. When we walked in, I knew he hadn't been in about 10 minutes earlier. And I figured within the 10 minutes we got there, they had put him in.
The whole thing is really kind of bogus, Larry. The Supreme -- I mean, the Secret Service were with him the whole time. Then our facility's staff -- our security staff were with him. And he was put in a building completely separate from everybody else. And there's no way he could hear. I've been talking about this all day. There was a rumor going around that he watched the program on a monitor in the Green Room that we had him in.
Well, there's only one problem with it. My staff, Chuck Taylor, disconnected that thing two days before it happened. So if he -- if they had happened to turn it on, it would have been all just static.
And both Barack and John agreed to the terms that said we will not listen to the other's, we will not get the questions in advance.
Actually, what happened is I did give Obama one in advance that I didn't get to Senator McCain because he wasn't there. Right before we started, I wanted to tell them there's going to be one question that I'm going to ask you for a commitment on. And I didn't think that was fair to ask for a commitment publicly without setting them up. And it had to do with orphans.
And so I did get to tell Senator Obama about that question. But because Senator McCain wasn't there, he hadn't -- he didn't have that question yet.
Larry King: All right.
Well, could he have heard it in the car, though, if he was still arriving at the event?
Pastor Rick Warren: You know what, if -- not a chance. The Secret Service would have reported it. When he showed up, there were -- and he says he didn't. You know, I...
Larry King: All right.
Pastor Rick Warren: ...I just have to accept his integrity on that.
Larry King: Sure.
(link)
Want to let Rich Warren know how you feel about all of this?
Saddleback Church, Lake Forest: (949) 609-8000
Yesterday on CNN, Candy Crowley repeatedly asserted that there was "no evidence" that McCain had prior knowlege of the questions - AFAIK that repeated assertion went unchallendged. CNN has been devoting lots and lots of air time to recapping the forum and slicing and dicing the charge that McCain had prior knowledge of the questions while simultaneously ignoring all evidence that clearly demonstrates that he did have prior knowledge.