NOBAMA!! A scorecord from Saddleback Church

No teleprompter will cause these types of moments.

From Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com

The consensus on yesterday's forum at Saddleback Valley Community Church is that Senator McCain had an exceptional night, that Rick Warren pulled off a very difficult job, and that Senator Obama was smooth as usual except for his "above my pay grade" gaffe,

*** Warren comments on Obama's "above my pay grade" gaffe,

"No. I think he needed to be more specific on that. I happen to disagree with Barack on that. Like I said, he's a friend. But to me, I would not want to die and get before God one day and go, 'Oh, sorry, I didn't take the time to figure out' because if I was wrong then it had severe implications to my leadership if I had the ability to do something about it. He should either say, 'No scientifically, I do not believe it's a human being until X' or whatever it is or to say, 'Yes, I believe it is a human being at X point,' whether it's conception or anything else. But to just say 'I don't know' on the most divisive issue in America is not a clear enough answer for me.

which is one of those phrases that will stick and hurt.

Obama also had on display yesterday a very troubling slipperiness that is increasingly defining him.

The senator has tried, somewhat successfully for the time being, to slip away from his associations with Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. He has also managed to slip into a "reformer" shtick that has zero connection to his hyper-partisan voting record.

But yesterday he tried to slip past at least two issues on which such obfuscation shouldn't work --same sex marriage and Senate ethics reform.

My point here is not to argue the policy positions Obama takes, but to point out his firm denial of his real positions on both issues. He flat out distorted his positions, and did so without even an arched eye-brow from the MSM.The transcripts of the interviews are here. (HT: Red County).

But what is more telling about Obama's performance at Saddleback is the response by the usual suspects in the Main Stream Media. This is highlighted by the McCain's Campaign's complaint against NBC's Andrea Mitchell.

In this case, the campaign is objecting to a statement by NBC's Andrea Mitchell on "Meet the Press" questioning whether McCain might have gotten a heads-up on some of the questions that were asked of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who was the first candidate to be interviewed Saturday night by Pastor Rick Warren at a presidential forum on faith.

Warren told the audience that McCain was being held in "a cone of silence" so he wouldn't hear the questions, which were similar for both candidates.

Warren referred again to "the cone of silence" when McCain came onstage, and the senator joked: "I was trying to hear through the wall."Mitchell reported that some "Obama people" were suggesting "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."

Warren adamantly denied these charges just a few minutes ago on the Sean Hannity Radio Show.

***The Drudge Report is flashing that Obama will announce his V.P. tomorrow in the A.M.***