SEDONA, Arizona (CNN) – In a Tuesday interview on CNN’s American Morning, John McCain dismissed news reports about Sarah Palin’s pronouncement that the United States should “absolutely” attack terrorists within Pakistan as nothing more than “sound bite politics.”
But McCain refused to acknowledge that Joe Biden’s recent criticisms of clean coal - comments used by the McCain campaign in a radio ad and Web video - occurred under similar off-the-cuff circumstances.
John Roberts asked McCain about his joint interview with Palin on Monday’s CBS Evening News, in which both candidates asserted that Palin’s caught-on-camera remarks constituted “gotcha journalism.”
“But at the same time you have gone after Senator Biden for a comment that he made under similar circumstances about clean coal technology,” Roberts asked. “Your campaign even released a video of part of his comments. Was that gotcha politics?”
“Well, I believe it was at a town hall meeting that he said it,” McCain said of Biden. “This was - hers was in an encounter in a pizza parlor where the question was framed so that of course we're going to go after terrorists.”
But Biden’s comments dismissing coal as environmentally hazardous actually occurred on a rope line after a town hall event in Maumee, Ohio last week and were recorded by a voter’s hand-held camera and posted to YouTube.
Palin’s mention of Pakistan occurred at Tony Luke’s cheesesteak shop (not a pizza parlor) in south Philadelphia on Saturday night - a stop organized by her campaign. A CNN camera crew, acting as a representative of the five television networks, was brought to Tony Luke’s along with the campaign motorcade and, during the course of the event, recorded Palin’s conversation with restaurant patron Michael Rovito.
McCain, in the interview, suggested that Palin was responding to a general question about whether or not a McCain administration would go after terrorists.
However, Rovito, who had asked Palin two previous questions about her thoughts on Pakistan and Waziristan, asked the governor specifically: “So we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan, you think?”
Palin’s answer: "If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should.”
McCain’s final point was that his administration would never publicly declare a pending attack within Pakistan’s borders.
“What she said was that she was going to respond to terrorist attacks,” he told Roberts. “And I'm saying we're going to respond to terrorist attacks. I'm not going to announce that I'm going to attack Pakistan.”
From CNN Politics
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this guy is they funniest guy in the world....
Wat a joke,,,
N E one that will vote for McCain is completly stupid, and i am a republican
I thought the American people deserved a president who always told them the truth Johnny?
Seems like you (once again) disqualified yourself from the job.
Holy crap....can you imagine these two fruitcakes in the White House? Not me, that's why I'm voting democrat.
Has Palin ever touched a minority person other than during her recent meeting with world leaders. I have never seen a picture of her with anyone that isn't white. I am curious about her relationship with minorities as well as John McCain's. It is so important for Obama to reach out to whites, what is it with the double standard? Why is McCain not held to the same standard of reaching out to minorities, specifically the black vote. The vote of Blacks and minorities aren't considered of value....I get itl!
Hillary had some slip ups in interviews too, but that never meant she wasnt ready to run for presidency. She would have been 10 times better then the arrogant Obama.
Sarah Palin will do fine. she is very likeable and comes across really well on camera. I still love the fact that she could be VP of this country.
These LIES out of the McCain Campaign are becoming troublesome. Obviously their new mantra is:
LIE ... BABY ... LIE!
pathetic liars. America won't be stupid enough to fall for that, will you?
More clean up for Palin aisle two!
ONE NATION
Nothing wrong with Palin's response.
It was not a call to attack.
Leave Palin alone.
Parsing each of her words.
When I say that I am absolutely voting for McCan/Palin, I mean to say "What! Are you freakin nuts!?"
Yeah, that's what I really mean.
The world is astonished by the fact that the American people might actually fall for this crab again after the last eight years of failed policies. Think people!
McCain a student asked Pailin a question, and she sound confused and uninformed.
I've made up my mind – McCain/Palin 2008. Senator Obama could not answer one question directly and concisely during the debate. What in the world is he thinking?
GET LOST MCCAIN!!! AND TAKE THE PIT BULL WITH YOU....WILL YOU????
YES WE CAN!!
McLAME. 'Nuff said.
Just say NO to Bush 44 and Caribou Barbie.
I will personally buy an airline ticket for McCain to go back to Arizona and another ticket for Palin to go back to Alaska. I cannot stand listening to either one of them anymore!
Nice to know the past few weeks haven't led McCain to lie any less.
The harder they spin the harder they fall.
I no longer question anything that comes out of McCain's mouth. I discount it all. But, what scares me, and badly, is that there are still people that support McPalin. And, get this, they are technically intelligent.
Say what you want, call it what you want. But, anyone with half a brain knows McCain is unfit, Palin is worse, and their supporters are generally afraid of seeing a black man in the white house.
Why? Don't answer that, it was the first question on the test and you already failed.
COMPULSIVE LIARS. McCain has no more honor than the terrorists we fight today.
mccain himself said at the repub. convention that he would go to the gates of hell to find bin laden.... well he's over that afghan hill, probably smokin hash in pakastain, laughing his butt off because he sucedded in bringing our economy to its knees.
So the comment doesn't count as legitemate if it is made face-to-face to a voter, but it does when it's made to a town hall audience? How, AS A VOTER, am I supposed to trust your word if, at a very basic, interpersonal level, I can't consider your word legitemate?!!! What a joke!!!
McCain play Gotcha politics and then critizes the media. He runs partial quotes form interviews and claims them to be substantitve.
He even tries to compare Palin to a 12 year govenor that was a Rhoads scholar and a2 term ogvernor of the largest state in the union.
Yes, everycampaign doe sthi sosrt of stuff, but for someone who wanted a new style of campaign and nothing but facts, his campaign makes Carl Rove look like someone on sodium penithal.
What happened to John McCain 2000?
And for the record John, you have insulted Americans with the Palin comparrison. She's a uneducated bumpkin by comarrison to either of the men you tried to tie her to. Let her stand on her own credentials if you truly believe in her.
Yet another example of McCain's idea that If They Do It, It's Bad, but If We Do It, It's Right.
What a bunch of crap.
Tell me the American people see this!!
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy [ventriloqiust and dummy, respectively] have nothing on these guys!
The wages of stupidity and lies is unelectability!