I mostly agree with Joe Gandelman’s take on the Saddleback Forum. Both candidates did well, though McCain beat the lower expectations set for him. I’d only add that the event took place on hardcore GOP home turf, so McCain’s policy answers are naturally going to please more of the crowd than Obama’s. Either way, McCain came out of it looking safe on the issues for the Religious Right and Obama showed the younger and less doctrinaire evangelicals that he is a true and thoughtful Christian.
But today two disturbing stories have emerged today that could completely overturn this conventional wisdom. The first is mostly just conjecture at this point, and I have reservations about its validity. But if demonstrated true, it could be fatal to John McCain’s candidacy. The second is less serious but is almost certainly true and casts serious doubts about the conventional wisdom analysis of the Saddleback Forum.
So, the first issue is a charge amplified by Andrew Sullivan that John McCain may have cribbed the poignant “cross in the sand” story from Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Indeed, one of the most touching moments of the forum last night was John McCain’s shared Christian fellowship with his North Vietnamese prison guard:
It was Christmas day, we were allowed to stand outside of our cell for a few minutes, and those days we were not allowed to see or communicate with each other although we certainly did. And I was stadning outside for my few minutes, outside my cell. He came walking up. He stood there for a minute and with his handle [sandal?] on the dirt in the courtyard he drew a cross and he stood there and a minute later, he rubbed it out and walked away. For a minute there, there as just two Christians worshiping together. I’ll never forget that moment…
But, as Sullivan points out, Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave an “eerily similar” account of his own imprisonment in the Soviet gulags in a 1997 interview with Orthodox Priest Father Luke Veronis. Here is the piece from Veronis:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author who spent many years in the gulag of Siberia, bears witness to the power of the cross. After long suffering in the work camp of Siberia, he fell into despair. Like other prisoners, he had worked in the fields day after day, in rain and sun, during summer and winter. His days were filled with backbreaking labor and slow starvation. On a particular day, the hopelessness of his situation became too much. He saw no reason to continue living, to continue fighting the system. He thought that the rest of his life was meaningless since he would most likely die in this Siberian prison. His life made no difference in the world. So he gave up.
Laying his shovel on the ground, he slowly walked to a crude work-site bench and sat down. He knew that at any moment a guard would order him to stand up, and when he failed to respond, the guard would beat him to death, probably with his own shovel. He had seen it happen to many other prisoners.
As he waited, head down, he felt a presence. Slowly, he lifted his eyes and saw a skinny, old prisoner squat down next to him. The man said nothing. Instead, he drew a stick through the ground at Solzhenitsyn’s feet, tracing the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the sign of the Cross, his entire perspective changed. He knew that he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet in that moment, he knew that there was something greater than the evil that he saw in the prison, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that the hope of all mankind was represented in that simple Cross. And through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.
It’s worth noting that John McCain never mentioned this “cross in the dirt” story until 1999 when he prepared his 2000 Presidential campaign. In a 12,000 word account offered in 1973 of his prisoner of war experience, he never mentioned the cross in the dirt story, even though he did discuss religion a bit. It’s also worth noting that John McCain is a huge admirer of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, as is his longtime associate and ghost writer Mark Salter.
Does this mean John McCain essentially pulled a Hillary-at-Tuzla and fabricated a heartwarming story to appeal to evangelicals at Saddleback? Several Kos diaries have pushed the story. But others in Kosworld think the story is unprovable at best and dangerous at worst. The spirited debate on whether this is a form of swift-boating is interesting in its own right as a window into Democratic navel-gazing.
As for me, I’m skeptical that John McCain completely cribbed this story from Alexander Solzhenitsyn. The risks are too high for McCain to do that. And unlike the Tuzla moment, there is no videotape. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible either. We’ll have to see how it pans out.
On the other hand, there may be a better explanation for McCain’s top shelf performance last night and it has little to do with heartfelt conviction or command of policy. Rick Warren insisted throughout the night that John McCain was in a “cone of silence” and was unable to hear any of the questions posed to Barack Obama in the first portion of the forum. After all, if McCain could hear the questions ahead of time, he could prepare his answers for maximum effect. An already home-field advantage for McCain would become a rigged event.
Lo and behold, it turns out today that John McCain was not in fact in a “cone of silence” at all. Rick Warren himself admitted that today, claiming that McCain was still in traffic and unable to get to the forum in time. Of course, one can listen to the Obama portion of the forum on the car radio so, if true, McCain and Warren would have pulled one over the American people (though Warren insists to Rick Sanchez that he thought McCain really was in the “cone” during the Obama interview.) Either way, it appears that John McCain got a heads up on the questions ahead of time and was able to prepare accordingly.
Nate Silver of 538 fame adds his two cents and reiterates that Warren gave the impression that McCain was not in the building during Obama’s performance and that McCain could not have access to the questions. It’s very possible that Warren genuinely believed that McCain was in the building. But the fact that he was not, in fact, in any sort of “cone of silence,” suggests that the event on television was not what it seemed.
I hope that both of these questions are explored more in the next few days. I’m skeptical at this point about McCain having stolen the “cross in the dirt” story but I don’t put it out of the realm of possibility. As for the cone of silence issue, however, it seems quite clear that McCain and Obama did not play by the same rules. And that may explain McCain’s apparent command of the forum.
[Update}
The New York Times now has a story on this. McCain’s campaign insists that he did not watch or listen to or have access through his aides to the questions ahead of time. If you believe that, well, then I’ve just been elected to my 10th term as President of the Republic of Tajikistan. Perhaps the biggest tell is McCain spokeswoman Nicole Wallace playing the POW card so flippantly. She says, “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.” So, because John McCain is a former prisoner of war it’s impossible that he heard the questions ahead of time? Isn’t she cheapening his POW service by playing this card?
Another oddity here. As Nate Silver points out in his commentary, Rick Warren completely contradicted himself on whether or not he knew McCain was in the building. Twice. First, he says they had a coin toss before the forum started to see who would go first. But if McCain was not there, how could they conduct the coin toss? And if Warren knew McCain wasn’t there to do the coin toss, why did he continue to state that McCain was in the building?
The second contradiction was his remarks to CNN’s Rick Sanchez where he said that he did not know that McCain was out of the building…but then felt compelled to ask Obama an extra question because McCain had not yet arrived at the building! Is he for real?
This may hurt Rick Warren more than it does McCain.
Here is the video.