Op-Ed: Did McCain Cheat in Latest Forum?

Last night, John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis sent a strongly-worded letter to NBC, complaining about "unsubstantiated, partisan claims" on the network made "in order to undercut John McCain." The claim in question was made by Andrea Mitchell on yesterday's broadcast of "Meet the Press,"

MITCHELL: The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because that — what they're putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama.... He seemed so well-prepared.

While the McCain campaign vociferously denied that he was outside the "Cone of Silence" originally, reporters from the New York Times have proved that McCain was in fact not in the building and therefore not in the room provided to establish the "Cone of Silence" In the end, McCain's own campaign seemed to have failed to understand the importance of the issue when they admitted in the letter Davis sent to NBC that McCain was en route to the event during part of Obama's session. A McCain spokeswoman has told the media that McCain did not hear the broadcast while in the motorcade, on the way to the even. Nor had he heard any of the questions. Conveniently that leaves out the possibility of coaching the candidate, which wouldn't have required McCain himself to hear the questions directly, but rather aides relaying the questions to him. The real issue at hand isn't whether McCain actually did cheat, rather that the opportunity presented itself. When you agree to a forum of this nature, shouldn't the onus be on the Candidate to abide by the rules, and not even appear to be flouting them?