John McCain caught lying about association with Bill Cunningham

[Guest True Patriot]

John McCain keeps getting caught with his pants down. He fails miserably to unite Republicans under him, and seems like a lightning rod for scandal. You guys are so screwed in November.

"It was a shaky and extraordinarily brief marriage – the coming together of John McCain’s presidential campaign and radio talk show host Bill Cunningham.

And the fact that it ended Tuesday in a bitter divorce could mean that McCain might lose custody of the marriage’s only asset – the millions of conservative Republican voters who listen to and believe in radio hosts like Cunningham and his colleagues.

“Yes, John McCain needs those people if he has any hope of winning in November,” said Jason Johnson, a political science professor at Hiram College in northeast Ohio.

“It’s going to be hard for them to support him, now that they’ve heard him stab one of their heroes in the back.”

The courtship between the McCain campaign and Cunningham began over lunch two weeks ago today, at the P.F. Chang’s restaurant in Rookwood, where two powerful Republican politicians – former senator Mike DeWine, McCain’s Ohio campaign chairman, and Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters – met with Cunningham to see if he would use his WLW Radio microphone, and his nationally syndicated show on Sundays, to support McCain’s bid for the presidency.

It ended in disaster at the noon hour Tuesday, when Cunningham gave a warm-up speech for McCain’s rally at Memorial Hall in which he attacked Democrat Barack Obama in personal terms – sending McCain through the roof once he heard about it.

Minutes after the rally ended, McCain rushed out into the theater before the waiting national and local media and repudiated everything Cunningham had said, saying he would not tolerate personal attacks on his opponents.

That lit a fire under Cunningham’s colleagues in the conservative talk show business – from Sean Hannity to Rush Limbaugh – who immediately began denouncing McCain on the airwaves, reaching millions of conservative Republican voters whom McCain desperately needs if he has hopes of winning the presidency this fall.

If the astounding number of reader opinions left on a comment board on The Enquirer’s Website are any indication – nearing 1,000 by late Wednesday afternoon – opinions here run the spectrum, from Cunningham fans vowing never to vote for McCain to Democrats’ cackling over the GOP family feud.

With a good chunk of Cunningham’s WLW listeners here in Ohio, having a talk show host hammering McCain non-stop from now to November can not bode well for a GOP candidate who must win Ohio to become president.

Cunningham has his version of what that Feb. 13 lunch was for. DeWine has his own.

Cunningham told his listeners Wednesday that at the lunch, DeWine and Deters asked him to be a warm-up speaker at the McCain rally – a task Cunningham has performed countless times for the Republican Party and its candidates.

They wanted him, Cunningham said, “to throw some red meat to the crowd… to get the crowd on their feet and get them happy.”

DeWine said Wednesday he never asked Cunningham to be a speaker at the event and didn’t learn until last Friday that Cunningham would be there. In fact, he said, the event hadn’t even been scheduled.

The purpose of the meeting, DeWine said, was to sound out Cunningham to see if he was going to be a pro-McCain voice on talk radio.

“Being the state chairman, I naturally wanted to know where Cunningham stood,” DeWine said.

Deters – who said he had no problem with what Cunningham said at the McCain rally – said that he did invite Cunningham to speak, but not at the lunch with DeWine.

Last week, when the McCain campaign told local party officials that the candidate was coming to Cincinnati, Deters said he told people at party headquarters that he would contact Cunningham about being one of the warm-up speakers.

Deters said Cunningham agreed, as long as he could get back to his radio studio by 12:30 p.m. for his regular show.

“Everybody knows that when you invite Bill Cunningham to speak, you’re not going to get a church mouse,” Deters said.

Cunningham said today his comments were not offensive or racist. “Everyone in the hall was happy with what I had to say, because it was regular political discourse,” he said.

On Tuesday, McCain said he had never met Cunningham. But Cunningham told CNN he met McCain twice before, including with Mike DeWine at Kenwood Country Club.

He again said that he isn’t supporting John McCain. But he backed off Tuesday’s on-air remarks that he would support Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“John McCain, I’m done with you,” he said. “I may not vote for Hillary, but I’m done with Juan Pablo McCain,” he said.

But it is not who Cunningham will vote for that might cause some concern for the McCain campaign.

They are likely more concerned about the millions of conservatives who listen to talk show hosts like Cunningham, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh who are likely to get a steady diet of anti-McCain messages.

“McCain, if he’s the nominee, is going to have to rely on the conservative base,” said John Becker, a Republican state central committeeman from Clermont County who supports Mike Huckabee for the nomination. “It’s hard to imagine them getting motivated if the talk shows they listen to keep pounding McCain.”

Last week, the conservative talk show hosts were defending McCain after the New York Times – hated by the right wing – published a story accusing McCain of a cozy relationship with a Washington lobbyist, a charge McCain denied.

Tuesday afternoon, after McCain’s repudiation of Cunningham, they had changed their tune.

“McCain’s been at the end of a yo-yo with these conservative talk show hosts,” Johnson said. “First, they were down on him. Then they were up on him. Now they are down again. Who knows what is next?”

DeWine – who was with McCain at the Cincinnati rally and stood by his side as he denounced Cunningham – said he is convinced the talk-show listeners will come back to McCain when they realize that the alternative is “handing the White House over to the liberal Democrat.”

“I can’t believe in the end that voters are going to make a decision in November based on what John McCain said about Bill Cunningham in February,” DeWine said."

[Bryan]

The accompanying story (I guess you don't care about copyright) offers only the very thinnest support for the headline you gave the thread.

Do you really think that McCain tried to deceive people over whether he happened to meet Cunningham at some time in the past?

It doesn't make sense.

It makes much more sense to think that McCain had no recollection of being introduced to Cunningham (how well do you know somebody if you can't remember them?). Cunningham did recall having met McCain under circumstances not described in the story.

Making a big deal about this seems approximately as stupid as trying to pump up the story about Obama in foreign garb.

There are much more substantial issues in this campaign, such as the Obama campaign speaking out of both sides of its mouth regarding NAFTA. That's a better candidate for a charge of deceit.

[Guest Guest]

Haha, the smartass neocon punks on this forum have no answer for this one, huh? They know they're screwed.

[Guest Guest]

The accompanying story (I guess you don't care about copyright) offers only the very thinnest support for the headline you gave the thread.

Do you really think that McCain tried to deceive people over whether he happened to meet Cunningham at some time in the past?

It doesn't make sense.

And you consider the senselessness a sign that it's WRONG? We're dealing with a master flip-flopper--sense means little to him. McCain said he NEVER MET the guy. There is no way he didn't know he was lying. Keep grasping for straws, it's sure fun to watch.

[Guest Keith]

The accompanying story (I guess you don't care about copyright) offers only the very thinnest support for the headline you gave the thread.

Do you really think that McCain tried to deceive people over whether he happened to meet Cunningham at some time in the past?

It doesn't make sense.

It makes much more sense to think that McCain had no recollection of being introduced to Cunningham (how well do you know somebody if you can't remember them?). Cunningham did recall having met McCain under circumstances not described in the story.

Making a big deal about this seems approximately as stupid as trying to pump up the story about Obama in foreign garb.

There are much more substantial issues in this campaign, such as the Obama campaign speaking out of both sides of its mouth regarding NAFTA. That's a better candidate for a charge of deceit.

The story's source is clearly indicated at the top so quit whining about copyright infringement.

[Bryan]

The story's source is clearly indicated at the top so quit whining about copyright infringement.

It's not enough to credit the source. You're placing KOTW at legal risk by posting the full content of copyrighted text. That's why many forums establish posting guidelines restricting such postings to a fair use safe 2-3 paragraphs.

This case demonstrates that the posting of verbatim articles in a forum for users to make their comments and criticisms regarding the subject matter can still be considered copyright infringement. Additionally, the defense of fair use under copyright will not be permitted to be used as an excuse for this type of behavior.

The case of Los Angeles Times et. al. v. Free Republic.com determined the applicability of the fair use defense under the Copyright Law to websites that had posted articles verbatim from newspapers. The court denied the fair use defense, because it did not apply to the conduct being done. The court granted the Los Angeles Times partial summary judgment and denied Free Republic.com summary judgment on the issues.

Your concern is noted, Keith.

[Guest Keith]

It's not enough to credit the source. You're placing KOTW at legal risk by posting the full content of copyrighted text. That's why many forums establish posting guidelines restricting such postings to a fair use safe 2-3 paragraphs.

This case demonstrates that the posting of verbatim articles in a forum for users to make their comments and criticisms regarding the subject matter can still be considered copyright infringement. Additionally, the defense of fair use under copyright will not be permitted to be used as an excuse for this type of behavior.

The case of Los Angeles Times et. al. v. Free Republic.com determined the applicability of the fair use defense under the Copyright Law to websites that had posted articles verbatim from newspapers. The court denied the fair use defense, because it did not apply to the conduct being done. The court granted the Los Angeles Times partial summary judgment and denied Free Republic.com summary judgment on the issues.

Your concern is noted, Keith.

Since all post are vetted through moderators maybe you should let "them" make that decision. Your concern is transparent.

[Guest Guest]

Haha, the smartass neocon punks on this forum have no answer for this one, huh? They know they're screwed.

Huh?

[Guest Guest]

Huh?

Let me put it in terms you can understand: the Republicans hate their candidate.