Apparently Obama did so poorly in his Rick Warren outing that his surrogates (whoops, reporters from major American papers) are parsing “Get Smart” references.

In that 1960s series, itself a spoof on James Bond movies, super-agent Max would go under a silly looking plastic cone whenever some secret had to be discussed. The joke was that even when the chief was also in a “cone of silence” he couldn’t hear Max either.

You might wonder what this has to do with the Obama-McCain debate moderated at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church this past Saturday. While Obama spoke first, McCain was supposed to be in a “cone of silence” so that the questions he would face would be equally new to him as they were to Obama.

Now the New York Times is claiming that McCain cheated ^[1]. He was in his limo racing to the church, not in a “cone of silence.” The McCain campaign hotly denied that the senator was listening in and, umm, cheating.

Naturally lots of bloggers ^[2] have piled on.

To call this a “tempest in a teapot” would be generous. Let’s say McCain really was listening in–which was news to Rick Warren. He looked visibly surprised to learn that McCain was not in the building the whole time. For the sake of argument, let’s concede McCain was in his motorcade and was listening in.

So what? Warren’s questions were not the word traps that the White House press corps specializes in. They were the kind of masterfully simple things that ordinary people would like to know: define rich, when does a human being get human rights, what would you do about poverty and AIDS? And so on.

The biggest crime is that the MSM hasn’t asked these questions of the candidates long before.

But the questions were not brain teasers. If you want to “tax the rich,” then you have to have some working definition of what rich is. So why can’t you tell us? If you have voted on abortion-related legislation (and both candidates have), you have to have some idea when a human being is entitled to certain rights–conception, birth, 18 years old, whatever. Any reasonably active political person would have thought about and debated these questions for years.

Still, the press hates questions about issues. They laugh at common citizens who stand up at town hall meetings and ask about issues. They roll their eyes and talk about his shirt. (Some of these citizen questions really matter, such as the question: Who is your favorite political philosopher? in the 2000 GOP primary. Bush’s answer (”Jesus Christ… because he changed my heart”) solidified support among evangelical and other voters.)

Instead, the press focuses on the horse race: who is ahead in the polls? Who said something dumb that might hurt their standing in the polls? Et cetera, et cetera.

Rick Warren showed-up the MSM and they got their revenge by claiming McCain cheated. What does that tell us about them?

UPDATE: Ann Althouse is taking a poll ^[3] on the “Cone of Silence” non-story. The multiple choices say it all.