McCain burned by Sheehan

In the previous post, I maintained that Senator John McCain was misled by Cindy Sheehan and her group which met with him. He now seems to realize that he was burned by her, both before and after the meeting. McCain's opponents are sure to get a giggle out of this. McCain said he had agreed to meet with Sheehan because he believed she was coming with a group of Arizona constituents. But on Tuesday, the only Arizonan in her small group was her congressional liaison, who grew up in Sedona but moved away when he went to college.

McCain said afteward, "It was a misrepresentation."

Asked if he would have met with her if he had known she was not with constituents, he said:

"I may not have."

After the meeting, Sheehan said she remembers McCain then saying Casey's death was "like his buddies in Vietnam" and that he was afraid their death was "for nothing." McCain said he doesn't remember saying that.

"That's ludicrous, I've never said anything like that. I not only have not encouraged Ms. Sheehan, I have expressed my strong disagreement with her views on the war."

Note that there are two different versions of this AP report. The one linked above has McCain's response to Sheehan's memory of the meeting and this one does not. It merely mentions that, "McCain, however, denied he made such a statement."

MSNBC has a partial transcript and a link to the video of Sheehan's appearance on Hardball with softball pitcher Chris Matthews. Not much there except for the following exchange:

MATTHEWS: I will go down the list, OK?

You say the only people that support the war have a vested interest in supporting the war.

SHEEHAN: Right.

MATTHEWS: Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, everybody who might conceivably run for the Democratic nomination in 2008 is backing this war.

Why are they doing it?

SHEEHAN: Because I believe that they feel like, if they don't, the nation will perceive them as weak.

Well, that certainly is a true statement. She also said that 62% of the American people believe that the war is wrong. Matthews didn't challenge that false assertion. Where did she get that number?

TAGS: John McCain, Cindy Sheehan, Iraq